Planning staffers: Split the Falkland baby - Gazette

By Jennifer Deseo on July 14, 2008

While the county’s planning board is still on the fence, its staff thinks part of the Falkland Chase apartment complex should be redeveloped.

During a two-hour public hearing Thursday afternoon, planning analysts told the board that the complex’s northern parcel — sandwiched between East-West Highway and the CSX railroad tracks — should be either partially or completely demolished to make way for more densely packed housing.

“The public benefit that full development can provide outweighs the benefit of preservation only,” Rollin Stanley, the director of planning, testified. The complex’s other two parcels — both of which straddle 16th Street on the south side of East-West Highway — can go to the history buffs, he suggested.

Most preservationists argue all three parcels should be saved as a package deal, most often citing the complex’s architectural and historic significance as garden-style apartments. “Losing part of the Falklands is not a compromise,” Mary Reardon, of the Silver Spring Historical Society, testified.

“I’m offended that the demolition of 140 housing units at Falkland Chase is considered a triumph for affordable housing,” Reardon threw in. According to her, current rents at the complex are at workforce-housing levels, and are lower than average for Silver Spring’s central business district.

And it’s the additional housing that redevelopment supporters are after. “I realize that access to affordable housing is of utmost importance,” Megan Moriarty, a three-year resident of Falkland Chase’s northern parcel, testified through a spokesperson. Moriarty said straight up that she was not in favor of preservation.

If all three parcels are preserved, some of the buildings on the northern lot may still be in danger of demolition. A proposed Purple Line route could run the mass-transit project right through a couple of buildings on the site.

But if development gets the green light, planning staffers can see it swinging one of two ways. The first option would save some of the northern parcel’s existing buildings while tossing up a couple of mid-rise apartment buildings along the CSX tracks. Each of those buildings would be no more than 143 feet in height, staffers reported (below).

Plan B would knock down all of the existing structures, set up 60-foot-tall buildings along East-West Highway, and 143-foot-tall buildings along the tracks. The shorter buildings would contain street-level retail spaces, though perhaps nothing big enough to contain a supermarket (below).

In a previous life, the property owners hoped to construct a set of interconnected high rises surrounding a large courtyard, plus enough retail space to house a Harris Teeter. It’s unclear whether those plans are still on the books.

The planning board will take the rest of the summer to digest all of the testimony and staff reports, and will get back to everyone regarding its stand on preservation in the fall, they said.