Rethink College Park

The Diamondback gave so thorough and so nuanced an analysis of Doug Duncan’s selection for university VP of Administrative Affairs that we will deffer to them on the issue. We can’t help but recognize the irony of the selection given the general shuffling of positions statewide. Duncan’s involvement in and audacity during the Downtown Silver Spring project (FP-Argo did Downtown Silver Spring and is now in talks with the university to develop East Campus) gives us hope that East Campus will proceed swiftly and efficiently.

Duncan to assume top university post, The Diamondback 3/26 - Ben Slivnick
–Diamondback Analysis of the pick and Staff Editorial (”Thinking Bigger“)

We’d be remiss if we didn’t take this opportunity to point out the Diamondback’s second botching of the Impact Fee Waiver controversy. Their first article (3/14) was completely off base in it’s assertion that student leaders (namely the SGA and GSG) had done nothing to fight the proposed narrowing of incentive zone for student housing and that the student stakeholders were upset with the compromise reached at the time (we, the SGA, and the GSG were extremely happy with it). Today’s article, asserts that a second “compromise” was reached last week (3/19) when in reality the City Council further limited the zone from the actual compromise we reached at their 3/12 worksession.

The 3/19 “compromise”, which most notably takes away housing incentives for the Koon’s Ford Property cannot be deemed a “compromise” since the issue was taken up outside of a City Council work session, there was no opportunity to respond to comments, and no Rethink College Park representatives were present or consulted on the new boundaries. Real compromise remains elusive on this issue and we (RTCP and whomever else is willing) will vigorously fight any legislation that does not provide adequate space for 5,000-7,000 beds of student housing.

The University announced yesterday its appointment of Douglas M. Duncan, former Maryland gubernatorial candidate (2006) and former Montgomery County Executive (1994-2006), as the Vice President of Administrative Affairs. He replaces John D. Porcari, who left the post in December to join the incoming O’Malley administration as the Secretary of Transportation.

Among other things, Duncan will oversee the East Campus development project, for which the University recently selected a prospective development partner. Having survived as County Executive of neighboring Montgomery County, where transit projects (Purple Line), highway building (ICC), and growth (sprawl) perennially emerge as hot-button issues, Duncan will be well prepared to handle the development concerns facing the East Campus project.

We wish Mr. Duncan the best of luck.

Two city councilmen, John Krouse and David Milligan, have proposed eliminating city funding for the little known and little understood City-University Partnership according to the Diamondback. The councilmen charge that the city seems to have gained little from its yearly (8 years) $50,000 funding of the entity and that the partnership, according to Krouse, is “being manipulated to the advantage of the university and developer interest, while providing little or nothing tangible for residents.”

We’re not sure what the councilman Krouse’s definition of “resident” is, but last we checked about half of the city’s 25,000+ population happen to be students of the University of Maryland. Perhaps Krouse should have specified permanent resident, of which District 1 (his and Milligan’s district) has many. Still, the quote from Krouse implies that the city’s budget is wholly derived from permanent resident’s pocketbooks. A pie chart (below) from the city’s own budget shows that that is hardly the case. The permanent residents, according to Krouse, aren’t getting anything for their contribution to the partnership, but they are also paying less than half of the partnership’s funding since UMD directly pays for half (of the partnership’s $100,000 budget) and university/renter-related items make up a significant share of the city’s $11 million yearly revenues. Residents will benefit just as much from a revived Route 1 Cooridor as the university community, if not more.

We had the opportunity to present this website to the partnership not long ago and were impressed that city officials and high-level university administrators do actually gather together in a room and talk about common concerns and common goals. Indeed, we recently posted the partnership’s guiding principles for the Northgate and “Knox Box” areas. Previously we’ve covered the Northgate Park project, which was spearheaded by the partnership, but appears to have taken quite a bit longer than expected (what doesn’t in College Park?). Clearly the partnership needs to be more of a public entity as some of its members have already expressed to us. Also, we agree that it needs to be more results-oriented. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a major player in College Park development and a great tool to ease town-gown tensions. So let’s get down to work and stop the political posturing.

A bill being considered by the Maryland legislature would give the City of College Park — and all incorporated cities in Prince George’s County — new controls over construction in neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes.

Under the proposed bill (HB 668 and SB 581) cities will be able to regulate the following variables for both new construction or remodeling work in single-family residential areas: fences, walls, parking, residential structures, setbacks, the bulk, massing, and design of structures, and lot coverage.

The bill is modeled after a similar bill for Montogmery County passed in response to teardowns and mansionization in residential neighborhoods.

Today, we submitted written testimony to the Maryland Senate’s Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee adamently opposing the narrowing of the impact fee waiver zone. As reported recently, we feel the proposed bill in it’s current form would drastically reduce the only incentive for building student housing in College Park. Interestingly, during research for this testimony, we discovered that even the furthest developments qualifying for the existing impact fee waiver (University Town Center) had 90% bus ridership among UMD students. This project’s eligibility for the waiver was contingent on an official relationship with the university’s bus service - Shuttle-UM. If that isn’t smart growth we don’t know what is.

Our testimony provides a framework for a compromise bill that:

• Provides long-term housing relief for University of Maryland students
• Includes the views of student stakeholders
• Respects the wishes of single-family homeowners and neighboring jurisdictions
• Adheres to the state’s smart growth principles
• Recognizes the unique urban planning opportunities and challenges of a college town

The Diamondback printed today RTCP’s own blistering account of the School Facilities Impact Fee Waiver bill being considered in Annapolis today and tomorrow (read our first report on this). While the undergraduate and graduate student governments may not agree with the specific rhetoric in today’s Op-ed, they stand firmly with us in opposition to this and any plan that would drastically reduce the only incentive for student housing in the area. We’ll be in Annapolis tomorrow with student leaders to give testimony against the bill and propose a plan that takes into consideration the interests of the 35,000 UMD students that were never consulted during the bill’s drafting.

>>Diamondback - No End in Sight by David Daddio

Not far north on Route 1, just past the used-car dealerships, the psychic shop, the tattoo parlor, the rubble of a brothel and a restaurant that fell victim to an arson, sleeps a homeless man in a tent on a wooded lot. He’s taken up residency in our beautiful college town - College Park. Ironically, this man lives in the very same place that 630 graduate students were set to move to in August 2007 - the Mazza Grandmarc apartment complex. Instead, nearly 10 months after the project’s approval, the developer remains embroiled in a bitter fight over a little-known and little-understood law that gives incentives for off-campus student housing: the public school facilities impact fee waiver (henceforth referred to as the extortion fee waiver). Two committees in Annapolis are poised to reconsider (read: gut) the very same incentive this week with a bill championed by local elected officials.
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The College Park City Council plans to discuss how to handle the timing of special elections at their regular meeting at 8:00 p.m. tonight, Tuesday, March 6th. Readers of this website will remember the January 16th special election for two vacancies on the city council fell during winter break when few students are in College Park, because the city charter required the vacancies be filled within 45 days.

City Council Student Liaison Jesse Blitzstein told us the discussions tomorrow could eventually result in an amendment to the city charter. We strongly urge supporters of student voting rights to attend the meeting.

Two state government committees are set review a bill early this week that would drastically reduce an incentive to build multi-unit student housing around the university. If the bill succeeds, it would condense (see map above) an existing overlay zone that exempts new student housing from what’s known as a “school facilities impact fee”. This is a one-time fee that applies to all new development in PG county in order to fund local public school construction. A 2002 law was successful in creating a waiver zone (in red on the map) within 1.5 miles of campus under the principle that UMD students shouldn’t have to pay for local public schools since they don’t use them (more details here). Local politicians have been hell bent on reducing the scope of the 2002 law since it went into effect without their consultation.

The fee is significant ($7,671 per unit in 2007) and the waiver has become a major incentive for new student housing in the area. For instance, you may remember our Mazza Grandmarc graduate student housing reporting. The 231-unit complex, if the fee was applied to it, would be slammed with a nearly $1.8 million bill. Because that money is so central to the project’s financing and required profit margin, the developer has been embroiled in a battle with County Councilmen Dernoga since May 2006 to start construction. Consider the University View. If that project were to be built today, its 353 units would be subject to over a $2.7 million fee.

The intention of this new bill is clear - minimize new student housing projects and especially new student housing projects that aren’t directly next to the University. Since the impact fee doesn’t apply to construction on UMD’s campus, the new zone (in yellow on the map) would leave only the Knox Box area and the Northgate area (west side of Route 1 only) waiver zones intact. The former is undergoing property consolidation, but large-scale development is years and years away. The latter is a promising district for student housing, but is already almost completely filled out with proposals for hotels and city-mandated owner occupied units (see development map).

This bill is supported by Senator Rosapepe and the Prince George’s county delegation along with the the College Park City Council. Absolutely no student leaders have been consulted at any point on this issue. The bill implicitly tells the University that it should take up responsibility for student housing, but Annapolis has already virtually stripped the University of that ability.

What’s the net effect of this bill as proposed? Gutting the impact fee waiver and further exacerbating the student housing crunch. It must not go forward.

Track the bills online:
> House Bill 697 (Hearing before the Ways and Means Committee at 1 p.m. Tues. March 6.)
> Senate Bill 582 (Hearing before the Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee at 1 p.m. Wed. March 7)