Rethink College Park

For starters, you may have noticed less posting on RCP lately. With one co-founder already away from College Park for a year and the other preparing to graduate, RCP is in need of fresh blood. We’ll be organizing a strategic meeting to bring together our supporters to plan for the future of the site soon, if you are interested in contributing please drop us a line. Recently a community member wrote to ask why we hadn’t written more, but demurred from contributing saying he wasn’t a “writer.” Before blogging, neither were many of our contributors!

What’s new around town? Councilmember Catlin was kind enough to post a short summary as a comment recently. To add to his comments, although rumors have been circulating about the Mazza Grandmarc Graduate Apartments, the developer personally (and vigorously) assured us construction was moving forward and they planned to break ground this year, hopefully late summer or fall.

Today’s Diamondback has two stories of note: a short summary of changes to the 517-bed addition to the University View being planned, and an article describing the over $620 million backlog of on-campus maintenance.

While we have a few posts planned, expect fewer stories until the future of the site is planned in more detail.

RTCP has a column running in today’s Gazette:

> Dernoga’s ‘misjudgement’ hindering Route 1

The letter is in response to the County Councilman’s August 16th letter, which in turn was a response to GSG President Laura Moore’s August 2nd letter.

by David Daddio:

I was disappointed to read [Prince George’s] County Councilman Thomas Dernoga’s condescending letter [‘‘Free the developers from captivity in College Park,” Aug. 16] defending his position on the proposed ‘‘Mazza” student housing development. As a strong advocate of this project for over six months, I’m hardly surprised by the brashness with which Mr. Dernoga continues to conduct his affairs in regard to this matter.

(more…)

We’ve written enough about this project. What had to be said was said. Now it’s finally time for the shovels to hit the dirt and for some concrete economic development to finally come to College Park (ETA - Fall 2009). The details aren’t clear yet, but the word is that Councilman Dernoga has finally given in to reason and made compromises on the conditions he put on the project last week - thus letting the long-awaited $60 million, 630 bed Mazza grad student housing project go forward. This wonderful outcome was due, in no small part, to the work of Graduate Student Government President Laura Moore and RTCP dating back to February.

It appears that County Councilman Tom Dernoga has Killed the 660 graduate bed Mazza Grandmarc. The conditions he put on the project’s approval today will likely not go over well with Mazza’s investors. Chief among these conditons are:

• Requiring LEED standards in the 11th hour
• KICKER: Requiring a site plan approval for the two commercial parcels on the portion of the property fronting Route 1 (before the resident portion could be occupied)

With seemingly no community opposition, the county council has killed the only up and coming student housing project in College Park. Incredible.

–> MAZZA AMMENDMENTS

The 60 day waiting period is almost up and the PG County Council is set to vote Monday on the approval of the Mazza Grandmarc - a 660 bed (largely graduate) student housing complex in northern College Park. The project has been stalled since May 2006 because Councilman Tom Dernoga “pulled it” for review. When the Council heard to case in April 2007, they said they expected more brick on the building and that it should exhibit green building standards. Word on the street is that that is likely what they will get from the developer Monday.

We understand the desire for higher quality (more brick) and the need to move towards sustainable building practices. What we don’t understand is who benefited (save the homeless man who lives on the property) from the long delay of the project. Please email us if you benefited! We do know who lost from the delay:  600+ grad students seeking decent, affordable housing who will have to wait the equivalent of 3 or 4 semesters past when Mazza should have been completed. Certainly the developer, the University of Maryland, the North College Park Citizens Association, the City of College Park, and the PG County Planning Board were all on the same page when they supported/approved Mazza in 2005 and early 2006. Why then did Mr. Dernoga pull it for review and wait so long to act? Why do we have to wait until 2010 for even the most minor aesthetic (the property is barely visible from Route 1) and economic improvements in College Park? Why doesn’t the council see the urgency that we and any plain person can see in which redevelopment is needed in College Park? Why can no one see how prohibitively difficult it is to develop anything along Route 1 and the need to work with (rather than opposed to) developers in a proactive and collaborative manner?

An aside:

Interestingly, the council never even addressed the most serious flaw of the Mazza project - its tremendous amount of parking - nearly one parking space for every tenant. Indeed, it’s a peculiar situation for a project that will have pedestrian connections to the Paint Branch Trail and frequent Shuttle-UM service. When told in April that Mazza’s internal parking deck was so massive that it would pop out of the top of the building and be visible to bikers on the Paint Branch Trail, no one on the council (Councilman Eric Olson had to recuse himself from the entire case) showed any concern. It’s telling that they instead chose to nitpick issues that had been worked out over the span of years by city and county planners or tried to set aside slush funds to please constituents. Ironically, the project now faces approval less than 2 weeks after a county consultant suggested limiting parking in the Route 1 Corridor.

“Unbelievable” is the only way to describe the scene at the County Council chambers this morning in Upper Marlboro. The developer of the proposed 630 bed graduate student housing project Mazza Grandmarc (LOCATION) finally came before the Council almost a year after Councilmen Dernoga “called up” the project for review. They poured over the Detailed Site Plan in painstaking detail - covering everything from architectural critiques to storm water management and (unsubstantiated) traffic concerns. The talks at times became extremely heated - especially between Dernoga and the applicant’s lawyer.

What the Council came to realize is that the their Planning Board Staff (as is their job) and the City of College Park had already brokered a series of laudable and complex compromises with developer since 2004. The meeting also confirmed what everyone else in attendance already knew - there was no conceivable reason to stall the project in May 2006. The Council seemed to be desperately trying to justify the yearlong delay of the project, but in the end they came up woefully short.

Still, they decided to take the project “Under Advisement” which means that they can review it for a maximum of 60 days to determine: (1) approval of the project, (2) approval with conditions, or (3) outright rejection of the project. Several issues were raised, but the most serious for the Council seemed to be:

• The project’s failure to meet minimum (at least 75% coverage) brick facade requirements as laid out the Sector Plan
• The project’s lack of “green” building standards

The Council’s contention was that the developer’s proposed brick coverage (45% total and 100% on the visible portions) is not sufficient and that the Planning Board erred in waiving the Sector Plan’s 75% brick coverage requirement. The developer agreed to make this costly addition to their plan although some members of the council indicated that they expected 100% coverage on all sides. Portions of the building which the council argued should be bricked are completely hidden by a dense forest leading many to wonder: what is the point of such a wasteful use of money and natural resources? Ironically, the brick will replace what was proposed as Hardiplank - an attractive and environmentally sound cement siding product made from ground sand and cellulose fibers. Not even the University View was required to have 100% brick coverage and that project is actually visible on more than just one side.

Councilmen Dernoga was particularly adamant about Mazza’s lack of “Green” Building standards. He pointed again to Route 1 Sector Plan Guidelines which suggest developers explore green building practices. Yet as College Park Planner Director Terry Schum rightfully noted, that section and many other sections of the Sector Plan are simply guidelines that cannot be enforced as mandates. Such a line of reasoning prompted Dernoga to ask if “the sector plan counts for anything?” It’s widely expected that the county will require at least a Silver LEED rating for new buildings, but no such law is on the books at this time and the Mazza developer probably can’t legally be held such a standard. The Council certainly didn’t have to wait until today to indicate that they expected either of these changes to the project.

So what’s the takeaway point from this mess? We’re not sure, but it’s definitely concerning when one man (Tom Dernoga) can stand in the way of a major student housing project in the height of the University’s worst housing crunch in 20 years. Not only is Dernoga delaying woefully needed Graduate Student beds, but he used the project force a change to a State law that gives incentives for other student housing projects in College Park. When the Mazza developer first stepped foot on the project site in the Summer of 2001 he never could have predicted that it would take 6 years to come to this point. In the interim he had to deal with an unimaginable number of site constraints (common to College Park) and political hurdles. While it appears that the project will eventually go forward, it won’t open for students until Fall 2009 or 2010 if all goes according to plan. Of course things never go according to plan in College Park.

We’re pleased to announce that a major (and in our view: reasonable) compromise was reached late last night on the impact fee waiver controversy. While everyone at the meeting agreed the boundary (that allows a county incentive for student housing) needs to be reduced from its original size (black line) to an area within the City of College Park, there was no consensus on exactly where the new boundary should be drawn. Jim Rosapepe and the 21st Delegation originally proposed (with the approval from the College Park City Council) the red boudary (seen above) and that version of the state bill went to committee last week in Annapolis. The amended proposal approved last night adds several key properties located both:

-west of Route 1 and north of 193

and

-east of Route 1 and south of 193

After these new areas were added, 6 of the 8 councimembers agreed, in an unusual pro-student vote, that the compromise boundaries (in purple) would more reasonably accommodate long term student housing needs in College Park. They apparently agreed with the reasoning that most of the property zoned “mixed-use” in the city could potentially be student housing and that it should be eligible for incentives as such. There was also talk about “density bonuses” to encourage even more housing right adjacent to campus.

We applaud last night’s decision and are especially looking forward to a period of limited RTCP political activism (after the bill becomes law).

The Diamondback picked up today on the Mazza Grandmarc graduate housing story that we posted last Wednesday. We’re glad to see this project gaining some attention after languishing since last May. The Graduate Student Government is also poised to act. Apparently the developer, TDL Multifamily Developers of South Carolina, navigated 5 years of approvals before the project got sidelined.

The Diamondback article repeats county Councilman Dernoga’s issue with the Mazza developer’s eligibility for the public school impact fee waiver. They did get one important thing wrong about the fee waiver - it already exists and it is perfectly within the law for this project to receive it (the Mazza site is within 1.5 miles of the university).

In addition to the 630-beds, the developer was quoted as saying that he hopes the retail planned to front Route 1 will include a bank and restaurant (not represented in the site plan below).

Parking lot in the bottom of this image fronts Route 1 here:

From an accompanying Diamondback staff editorial:

The Prince George’s County Council is holding back approval for the construction of a 630-bed apartment complex at a ransom of nearly $1.7 million.

Given the circumstances, we find it difficult to disagree.