Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Rockville. Today is Wednesday, May 27th, 2026. This is meeting number 8-26 of the City of Rockville Planning Commission. I am Meng Sun, Chair of the Planning Commission. I am joined in chambers by Commissioners Eric Fulton, Susan Pittman, and Commissioner Jamie Espinosa. Commissioner Zayin and Zayan Zahadin cannot join us tonight. Tonight's meeting is being conducted in person and virtually by Webex. Tonight's agenda includes one review and action item, and then it will be followed by our regular scheduled commission items. Does any commissioner have any thoughts before we proceed? Hearing none, let's proceed with our first agenda. First agenda is mandatory referral application 2026-305-MRF to construct a new side entrance from West Good Drive to the Rockville Senior Center, located at 1150 Carnation Drive in the Park Zone. City of Rockville Department of Public Works is the applicant. So Mr. Waslack, is there a staff presentation?

Yes, Madam Chair. There is a staff presentation. Mr. Ortiz is going to present the planning recommendation, and then Mr. Cimino from Public Works and perhaps others will discuss the operational aspects of this application kind of as a combined staff presentation.

OK, thank you. Let's proceed.

Good afternoon, Madam chair members of the commission also Ortiz with community planning and development services department this first item is the senior center entrance mandatory referral application twenty twenty six three zero five and our F. This application is for the property located at 1150 Carnation Drive. This is the site of the Rockville Senior Center and Park. The property's land use designation is civic and public institutional. The property is zoned park and is approximately 12 acres in size, according to SDAP. To the north of the subject property is office as well as to the west and to the east and south of the property is residential. Access to the property is currently from Carnation Drive. Of course, this project proposes a new entrance from West Goody Drive. That approximate the approximate alignment of that new entrance, you can see hatched and yellow. So this is the proposal. Again, this is a new entrance from West Goody Drive. The proposed entrance will align with the West Goody and Picard Drive intersection, and it'll connect to the corner of the north parking lot. The proposed entrance will have two 12-foot lanes, including curb and gutter. Sidewalk on the west side of the driveway is proposed, as well as landscaping on both sides of the driveway. As part of the project, the applicant also proposes certain intersection improvements, starting with a dedicated left turn lane on West Goody Drive to the senior center. You can see it here. The applicant will also be providing new signage at the intersection and new curb ramps and sidewalk connections from that intersection. The applicant is also looking at adding a microbioretention facility at this location here. Four parking spaces here. And they will also be installing two access gates here and here between the north parking lot and the circular driveway in front of the senior center building. The intent of the access gates, of course, is to control cut-through traffic. And in terms of who will have access control, the applicant does, or the city does, intend to provide members of the senior center access to the gates while the senior center is operating. So during the hours of operation of the senior center. In terms of next steps, the applicant will complete their 100 design drawings following the decision by the Planning Commission. The applicant intends for the construction to begin late this year. This is a mandatory referral application. The application is being processed as a mandatory referral in accordance with applicable state law governing the construction of public projects. The Planning Commission's review was to determine consistency with the plan, specifically as it relates to the location, character, and extent of the proposed site development. The Planning Commission has 60 days from the date of submittal of the application to render its decision on the project, or it is deemed to be approved. The applicant may appeal a decision of denial by the Planning Commission to the Mayor and Council, which can vote to overturn the ruling by a two-thirds vote and proceed with the project. As for the findings, staff does find the project to be consistent with the plan in terms of its location, character and extent. We find that the project is located on existing public property designated as civic and public institutional by the comprehensive plan. They proposed a new entrance is recommended in the comprehensive plan as a city project for planning area 5. of course, this project will be implementing that that recommendation. This new entrance will also provide a 2nd, more convenient point of access to the senior center from a major corridor. And with the two gates, of course, the applicant intends to control the cut-through traffic through the site. We also find that the intersection improvements will provide ease of access into the senior center site. And we also find that the project is compliant with the forest and tree preservation ordinance, as well as store water management requirements. And so with that, staff does recommend approval with conditions of mandatory referral 2026-305-MRF. And I've provided a recommended motion should the Planning Commission want a recommendation there. And that does conclude my presentation. I understand Mr. Cimino, who is part of the applicant team, also has a presentation, which I will... Attempt to bring up.

Thank you madam chair commissioners. I'm Craig seminar. I'm the director of public works back in my role as director of public works. This project is almost a classic example of government doing its work. It's actually implementing something that's called out very specifically in the comprehensive plan. And if this was an undeveloped site, you would see a building being developed at the same time. But as we know, it's not an undeveloped site. If it was an undeveloped site, the primary entrance would not be off Carnation Drive. It would be off Goody. That is the way we build. facilities for the public these days, schools, community centers, et cetera. An example is the Falls Grove Community Center. It's off a major street. It's not tucked into the neighborhood where people who are expecting to use it from outside the neighborhood has to wind their way through. But unfortunately, this building was built in the early 60s with the neighborhood. It served as a school initially, and it closed in 1979 and reopened in 1982 as a senior center. So we have an entrance that goes through the neighborhood. Two streets in particular bear the brunt of that traffic. It's Crocus and Azalea. And both of those streets are secondary residential streets. If there are cars parked on both sides of the street, only one car can make it through at one time. That's the way our old design was for secondary residential streets. But buses used to go there, ride-on buses still occasionally go here, and that's the way the traffic gets here. That's not the way we build public facilities today. So this building, this facility, wants to have its entrance on Goody Drive, but it's not. And now the problem is when we're putting it there, we have a problem. We already have an entrance off of carnation. And if we build one off of Goody and when a carnation in the parking lot connects them, there is concern that people will use that entrance to go through the neighborhood and ask through traffic as it's commonly called. And one of the difficulties here is. You may ask, well, why would somebody use this as cut-through traffic? Well, frankly, it's the residents who live there are probably most motivated to use it instead of going all the way around to their house. But the intersection of 355 and Goody often backs up. And during rush hours, especially the evening rush hour, it would probably be, if people knew of this entrance and if it was unguarded, there would probably be attempts to have cut-through traffic going through here when those instances happened. So our charge here, and we led the team effort from Public Works, but it's a joint effort with Recreation Parks. They run the recreation center. We have the roadway. We have to fix the intersection. And so this is a team effort with us taking the project lead. And so our challenge is how to put the new entrance there, but to mitigate the attempt to cut through. And so the portion I want to focus here on is the gate system, which is what we came up with. to mitigate the entrance. You can see here in this aerial view, if you can go back to the last slide, you can see that this is the site aerial view today. Only access is through carnation on the bottom of the picture. The next slide shows the aerial view with the new entrance shown there. You can see the two yellow locations are where we propose to locate the gate arms. We chose two gate arms because we did not want traffic to get all the way up that road to a gate arm and decide they couldn't make it through, and they would have to back down that access road from both directions. So two gates were chosen. We're also going to be putting some bollards around the gate to make sure people can't drive off into the grass. to make their way around it. And so one of the biggest decisions we had to make in this project besides what to use to deter that was to where to place it. Initially, we were considering dividing the parking lot and having part of that big parking lot serve one side and part of it serve the other side. And we were trying to get some traffic details as to where users of the senior center lived and how many might use each section of it, and we were criticized. We were criticized because it wasn't scientific data, and it wasn't, okay? No one has any scientific data that's gonna show this. So in the end, the option we came up with, and we studied many of them, we studied putting a Jersey barrier type of device there permanently, just blocking it off. The problem is when one side fills up, there's no option to go and park on the other side. And it's fixed. Secondly, there was an option to say close the entrance off of Carnation Drive. Why would we need it? Let everybody come in from Goody. Well, the people in the neighborhood who are used to driving there and using that field for recreation on weekends and going to the center didn't like that option. So we were kind of stuck between two opposing forces here where we couldn't close either of them. We wanted to put both of them. And so this is the solution that we came up with after having six advisory group meetings. The mayor and council directed that we form a Neighborhood advisory group we had six meetings with them and we did two public meetings Which were very well attended one of them was in this room at 30% design the room was probably packed and then the second one was just two weeks ago a virtual one online where we covered the 90% drawings with the public so We have fielded all of the concerns. We heard them all and I will tell you we haven't satisfied everybody and I haven't seen a public project that does that. There are still people concerned with who's going to be pushing the button on this gates and opening it, and how are we going to monitor it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And there is concerns with lots of people on both sides of this, some who want it, some who don't want it. Who are we going to give access to the gates, and how are we going to do that? Well, this system that we picked was extremely flexible. Um, it's typical gates, but it's going to be running installed by the company that installs the gate arms for the rest of the city. And we can, we can close the gates off at certain hours. So, for example, initially, we're going to leave the gate arms down and down position. And we're not going to allow any access, even for people who are members of the club after closing hours. This prevents the people at 10 o'clock at night. going through and cutting through and doing things, et cetera. And then during operational hours, we're gonna come up with a system that allows members to go through and do that. Also, there's options of a camera and possibly a call button, et cetera, in case people don't, and it is also an option of when they know they're gonna have a lot of people, they can go open And staff can open the gate for an hour while there's a big event, close it afterwards to stabilize the traffic. So there's all sorts of flexibility built into the system we have here. And there's fears that people are going to still use the system if they have a membership card to abuse it and everything. Well, we can count the cars that come through in an hour. If you have 45 cars that come through in an hour and there's only 15 cars parked in the parking lot, something's going on. And frankly, we can... change the system to modify it to what happens here. So or we may find out no one's abusing this at all and we can leave the gate arm open for extended periods of time. So it's very flexible to go either way depending on what we find out and that's why we came up with this solution and that's why we're moving forward as such. This project has lots of interest in the community, has lots of interest from King Farm and other communities who have to drive around and go through the neighborhood. They don't want to cut through Crocus and Azalea in those neighborhoods. They want a quicker way to get here. And so this is the solution we came up with. The project does have to go to the mayor and council for approval because the project will go out to bid. And we're suspecting that the price of the project will be well over the dollar threshold that will require a mayor and council contract approval. So they will see it. They will have to approve it. As you can see here today, the only reason this room is not packed is because we've done those outreach meetings. Believe you me, I personally attended most of those advisory group meetings. They weren't going well in the beginning. And so we have put a lot of effort between the two departments to manage all of the concerns. And I can tell you, I don't know of a better way to manage it than what we have right here. Lots of people will say there's problems that might happen. No one has come up with a better solution. So I wanted to make sure you understood this because you've already received one email and we responded to that email. But there are still concerns lingering out there. But in my professional opinion, this is the best solution that we have. With that, we're here both from Public Works, we have staff here, and Recreation and Parks Deputy Directors here, and Terry Hilton is online, who's the Director of the Senior Center. If you have any questions, we'll be glad to take them.

Thank you so much for both presentation. Let's open for some discussion and questions. No, no?

Okay, I'll start. Here's an easy one, Mr. Simonal, and to staff, just walk me through this. I understand how we monitor who's going in when the arms are going up and down, right? I'm assuming there's a system in place there. But once the arms go up, and we leave them up at nights or weekends if we ever decide to do that, is there a way to monitor how much traffic is going through open arms? Does that make sense?

It does make sense. The idea is not to leave the gate arms open when the facility is not open. It's to leave it closed. And so the monitoring occurs when the gate goes up and down because somebody is using a device to open it and close it. And there is a camera enabled there. So that's the monitoring that will take place. But the gate arm will only be in the down position when the facility is closed.

I don't have any questions, I just was going to say this sounds like a robust and thorough process, and thank you very much, Mr. Cimino, for leading that.

I'll second Commissioner Hoopman, but I have just some curiosity questions. In the sort of fail safe where there's a call button, would that go to a person on city staff within the building, or would that go to like a central command that handles all the gates in the city?

That's a good question. And you notice we have not put the operational details of how we're going to do this in writing. There have been residents requesting that we do so, and we have not. One, because you notice that the drawings don't show the gates. The gates are not going to be procured. with the rest of the project. They're going to be procured separately. But secondly, we want flexibility to understand exactly what technology we're going to bring. And frankly, staff wants the flexibility based upon what they see there. So we're not doing that. So to your question, the call button option will go to the senior center.

OK. The next isn't really a question. I could foresee several instances where people who have the code or the key or whatever it is to get to the gate, get to the gate and realize they don't have that code or that card or that key. That's where my concern would be. What happens to those people? Do they have to turn around and go the long way? Is there someone there to call? I understand that's probably still being worked out. That's my only real concern with this, and it's not...

Related to this right and 1 important thing is you don't need to go through the gate. You only need to use the gate is if the side you are coming in on the parking is at capacity already. So most people who will come in will not even have to use the gate. They just have to park on the side that they come in on. However, you raise a good question, and that's why some operational flexibilities, if it's on a peak time and they know the parking lot on one side is full, they could leave it open for an hour or so to let that. We want the flexibility, but the call button is meant to be a backup if something happens.

Thank you. I have a follow-up question. So I understand based on the current gate location, the parking is open to public, even though they don't use the scenic center, senior center, right? They can park there.

And it's still, the grounds will still be open to the public after it's closed. They will just not be able to transverse between the two sides of the parking lots.

Okay, so that's the intention. It should be open to public.

And it still will be open to the public. They just won't be able to go from one side to the other one after hours.

I see, I see. And then you mentioned the neighbor, nearby neighbors, they can park their tool to use the facility when the senior center is not open during the weekend. So they can use it as a park?

Yes, there there is some use after hours and they still be able to use it from both sides and that was the one of the reasons why we wanted to keep access open to both sides again if you're trying to go park on the carnation side and you try to use a feel up here, you'll have to park on the side and walk around the 2 gates to get to get there. So there is a few 100 feet there of walking, but it maintains the integrity of the preventing cut through traffic.

I see, yeah. Understanding this, I think this is the reasonable solution. And the details we have to see, right? And based on our observation, it might change. But I appreciate that we have a flexible system that can adapt to the situation.

Yes.

Okay, thank you. I have no more questions. So, seems like... Oh, yes. Yeah. So, Mr. Waslach, is there anybody here like to testify?

Madam Chair, it appears that there are potentially three persons online who would provide testimony, and I will just call them in the order that they appear on my screen. That's okay?

Okay. Yeah. So, before you're calling, I'd like to remind the rule of the testimony. So, if you intend to testify for any of the agenda today, and... Each individual will be allowed for three minutes to provide comments on the application. And however, if you present an organization such as an HOA or community group, you are allowed to up to five minutes. And there is a clock in front of you. I think online there will be also clock. Okay, then the I think Mr. domain will remind you to check the time and when the time ends. And at any time, commissioners can ask clarification questions, and please adhere to these time limits. And so how can we enforce the time?

We'll just remind the individuals when they are speaking when they are at the end of the three moments.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Then let's begin.

The first speaker on my list is a phone number beginning 3014 and ending in 29. You're unmuted if you'd like to speak. The next person shown is Anna Astrid. You're unmuted if you'd like to speak. And finally, we have Juliana. You're unmuted if you'd like to speak.

I'm okay, I don't wish to testify. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Chair, that concludes the individuals that are online at the moment.

Okay, thank you. So hearing no testimony, and so are there any other discussions commissioners like to make? Okay, hearing none, is there a motion? Can we see the sample motion on the screen?

I move that we approve mandatory referral application 2026-305-MRF based on the required findings and subject to the conditions outlined in the staff report.

I second the motion.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Case in motion approved. Thank you. Okay, the next item is our regular agenda items. And Mr. Westlake, so do we have a staff liaison report?

Yes, Madam Chair and members of the Commission. Just looking ahead to your next two meetings, we actually do not have any agenda items that are shown for those meetings at the moment. But I would like to keep them open just in case there are some items that end up being eligible. I did want to give you an update on the Mayor and Council's review of the Zoning Ordinance and Comprehensive Map Amendment Act. I believe since your last meeting, there has been, there has not been a, work session. There was a work session on May 11th, just prior to your last meeting. There was one scheduled on May 18th. Unfortunately, that got moved to June 1st. And so this coming Monday will be the final scheduled work session for the Zora and CMA. And the Mayor and Council are reviewing Articles 9 through 13 at that work session. And adoption is still scheduled for June 29th. Mm-hmm. So we're moving right along. And that concludes my report.

Thank you. And so I think we have a new business to review. It's our 2025 annual report draft that we all received. So commissioners, so Mr. Westlake, would you like to give us a presentation or introduction?

Just to introduce the annual report, it consists of two components. One is essentially a cover letter with five questions that the Maryland Department of Planning asked every jurisdiction to respond to. And that is the two-page document that I sent you. And then there's the more robust annual report, which kind of has been our tradition to send a lot more, a lot wordier, but certainly is a good overview of the city itself and kind of what's happening, at least that's the intent. So during calendar year 2025, total number of permits that were issued for residential units totaled 161, and that included 47 multifamilies, and the rest were either two over twos or single family, detached, which I think there was one, and then the rest are townhomes. As you know, there are a couple of developments moving forward in construction at the moment, and so that accounts for the new residential permits that were issued during the calendar year, and that is the metric that the Department of Planning would like us to report to them primarily. But also, they want to know what's going on in terms of facilitating land use changes and residential use, et cetera, in accordance with our comprehensive plan and the state's goals. So, I included a little, Summary, primarily focusing on the ZOR and CMA and the intent of those processes to implement the comprehensive plan and also implement the recommendations of the FAST initiative in the zoning ordinance among other aspects. And of course we are required to report whether all of our commission members have completed the training course and happy to report that everyone has. So, those are the basic questions for the state. And as I said, the rest is a little more detailed in terms of text and goes through each action that the Planning Commission took in terms of development applications and also summarizes any actions you took regarding the comprehensive plan, although, In particular this year, there was not any. You had reviewed the town center master plan in the prior year. So I would note that in terms of your actions with regard to site plan, which I found to be interesting, there was just over 1,000 residential units that were approved by your action at a site plan level of approval. in just under 800,000 square feet of potential new research and development and office space that was approved. And that was found in two separate applications. One thing that I do note, if you're familiar with past reports, you know that we have done a map in the past. I was seriously considering not including the map As I got more into the report, I think it probably does make sense to include it. So the map that you have in the draft is last year's map. And once we have the final map for this year that includes all the applications that are in the list, I will drop that into the document. If you agree, I think it makes more sense that way. And finally... There was just a brief summary of what we expect you to work on during the current year, 2026. Of course, you've come through a lot with the zoning ordinance rewrite and map amendment work sessions that you held and the recommendations that you made. And I'm not anticipating major efforts in the rest of this calendar year, although we know there are a couple of neighborhood plans that are coming. You'll probably see those starting next year. So, with that, happy to answer any questions. I will note that the kind of traditional report to the Mayor and Council is scheduled for June 8th, and so we'll be sending this out forthwith in the Mayor and Council brief book. So, if you have any input, I'd be happy to hear it. If you see anything that is not correct or anything else, please let me know. I'm open to feedback.

Thank you, Mr. Westlake. I'd like to start. I think the map is very important. And I think just by looking at the 2024 map, and it looks like all the activities are kind of along the traffic corridors that kind of match our master plan intention. I think that's a good thing. And I'm curious to see the map for the 2025s. And also just in term of the table of contents and that I assume that will be finalized when the document is updated. So it's right, it still shows the 2024 activities.

Yep, I see that.

Okay. All right, so commissioners, any comments for this report?

No, it's all good? The one thing I'll note is at the end of my term now, because I was reappointed, it expires in 2031, which means you have to deal with me for a lot longer, but that's the only change I had.

I know. So that's nice of me.

No comments. I only got to skim it before the meeting, so I'll take a deeper dive when I have a few more minutes, but I support the map, certainly.

Okay, then now I look at mine, so I was reappointed too in 2025 or 2026, 2026.

Yeah, so that will expire in 2031.

Right, I have that one, but not Commissioner Espinosa, so I'll make that fixed.

Okay. Okay. So hearing no other comments, so is there a motion to approve the annual report?

I move that we approve the report.

I'll second that.

Oh in favor say aye?

I just ask that assuming that things will be updated and we'll have a moment if we catch anything before. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

If you do see anything, please just email me directly.

And I'll do that within 24 hours if I see anything. I know you got a time crunch.

Perfect.

I'll amend that motion that the to approve the annual report including noted changes and updates.

Do we have a second?

Oh, I second the motion, yeah.

Okay, yeah. All in favor say aye. Aye. The report is approved.

Thank you very much.

Okay. Thanks for Mr. Westlake's hard working on putting this report together, and it seems like we have done a lot of activities. Okay, so the next minutes to approve, and we received one minutes, right? It's pretty long.

Yeah, just the one said it was a work session, so I would understand if you didn't have an opportunity to review those.

I reviewed them. I did not have any changes.

Same as Commissioner Espinosa. I reviewed them, no changes.

I reviewed them. Sorry, on page 15, paragraph 7, the wrong version of here is used. It should be H-E-A-R instead of H-E-R-E.

Which page was that?

Page 15, paragraph seven. Let me see if I can find it again. It has something to do.

Is that in the minutes or in the report?

I think it's in the minutes.

So the minutes have seven page. Yeah.

Oh, so what am I looking at then?

The annual report maybe?

No, that's 725. Hang on, let me see if I can find it again.

I found it. Oh, you found it? Let's see, it's right here. So that is page six of seven. Oh, you know what it is? The paragraph starts, Commissioner Fulton stated that.

I'm looking at Adobe page numbers, not agenda page numbers.

Oh, where?

I see it, yeah. Is it, yeah?

Okay, yeah.

If you ever wondered if one of us really does read the minutes in full.

Copy editing certificate comes in handy sometimes.

Okay, so with that changes, do we have a motion to approve the minutes?

I move to approve the minutes with the noted correction.

Second. Oh, in favor say aye. Aye. The meeting is approved. Thank you. And so do we have any correspondence anyone like to bring?

I think just the correspondence that you received yesterday and then there was a response from the staff on the application this evening.

Okay, thank you. That's a very thorough response. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so I think we finished all the agenda today. So do I have a motion to adjourn?

Move to adjourn.

Second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

The meeting is adjourned. Good night, Rockville. Thank you.