MEMORANDUM
TO: City Council
FROM: David J. Deutsch, City Manager
SUBJECT: CB-35-2003 (Previously CB-16-2003)
Planned Environmental Preservation Community
DATE: 6/5/03
At the June 2nd City Council meeting, Council directed staff to schedule a
public hearing on CB-35-2003 at the Special Meeting of Council next Monday
night. Staff was instructed to prepare a position statement letter for Council’s
review. Both CB-16-2003 and CB-35-2003 will go to public hearing on June
10, 2003 at 10:00 a.m. It is our understanding that if CB-35-2003 is approved,
CB-16-2003 will be withdrawn.
Last week, staff provided an analysis to you detailing reasons why neither of the bills should be supported at this time. Although a recent newspaper article indicates that MIE has the Nash property under contract, it is stated that the property is going to the County. This conflicts with the first tenet of the April 28, 2003 Council position, which is contained in the May 20th letter to County Council Chairman Peter Shapiro.
Staff’s overall conclusion is that CB-35-2003 does not address the issues identified by the City. Staff recommends Council continue to hold the position that, unless the prerequisite conditions are met prior to the public hearing and all of the City’s other recommended revisions are addressed through further revisions to the bill, the legislation should not be approved.
Recommendation
It is recommended that the attached letter of opposition to the Planned Environmental Preservation Community legislation be sent to the County Council.
D R A F T
June 10, 2003
The Honorable Peter A. Shapiro, Chair
Prince George’s County Council
County Administration Building
Upper Marlboro, Maryland 20772
RE: CB-35-2003 (Planned Environmental Preservation Community)
Dear Chairman Shapiro:
On Monday, June 9, 2003 the Bowie City Council held a public hearing on CB-35-2003. The proposed legislation adds a new land use to the Zoning Ordinance definitions, the Planned Environmental Preservation Community, and permits the use in the E-I-A Zone, under certain circumstances and subject to certain design and development standards.
After reviewing the bill and listening to the testimony of the public, the City Council concludes that CB-35-2003 does not address the issues identified by the City. Only minor changes have been made to the legislation proposed originally in CB-16-2003 (Draft #2).
On April 28, 2003, the City Council agreed, in principle, to support the general theme of CB-16-2003 (Draft #2), with some exceptions. Specifically, the Council listed several conditions we felt to be critical. We continue to support those conditions as prerequisites to move forward on this matter. Therefore, because of the great importance of these requirements to the character of future development at the Maryland Science and Technology Center, the City Council recommends that you not approve CB-35-2003 until all of the City’s recommendations, detailed in our May 20th letter on CB-16-2003 (Draft #2), are addressed through further revisions to the bill or in some other way.
Some of the more salient reasons relating to our current position are as follows:
1. Council Member Peters, in a letter to the City dated May 22, 2003, indicated that the proposed legislation cannot be contingent on Nash property transactions or other specific requirements for the Maryland Science and Techology Center (MSTC). Since the five (5) initial items enumerated by the City Council in the May 20th letter (attached) are considered threshold criteria upon which the City’s position of support is premised, it is apparent that moving forward with either CB-16-2003 (Draft #2) or CB-35-2003 will conflict with the City’s policy on this matter.
2. The letter from Council Member Peters suggests numerous times that CB-35-2003 is now intended to not only apply to the MSTC but other properties as well. It has always been the City’s understanding that the applicability of the bill was intended for only Pods 5 and 7 of the MSTC. The original draft of CB-16-2003, which removed the acreage and other limitations of last year’s CB-13-2002, was intended to link the mixed-use planned community regulations from that bill to the MSTC. Our understanding is that there are very few properties zoned E-I-A in the County and that the legislation was being written to accommodate the development proposal for the MSTC. It would be instructional to know what other E-I-A properties may be affected by the change in scope of the legislation and what its impact might be on these properties.
3. It is suggested that some of the City’s recommendations for amendments to the bill involve “substantial changes” that cannot be included without further study by Planning Commission staff. In the May 20th position letter to the County Council, the City Council plainly stated its desire to have the legislative process “slow down” until all of the items recommended by the City could be included. The City Council spent the better part of our May 5th City Council meeting fashioning constructive recommendations intended to address deficiencies in CB-16-2003 (DR-2). The City feels strongly that this proposed environmental legislation should (at a minimum) address impervious surface limits and water quality protection buffers, as these items are major omissions in the legislation and are among the most controlling factors in environmental protection.
4. The current draft of CB-35-2003 conflicts with significant recommendations made by City Council, including recommendations for:
· a full CDP submission rather than a reduced CDP submission that is more limited in scope and applicability;
· required structured parking for multi-family development;
· buffer encroachments where it must be demonstrated that there is no feasible alternative to the proposed disturbance;
· coordination of utility encroachments into the buffer within a single corridor;
· detailing the range of recreational amenities and open space improvements; and,
· specific residential design standards.
The City Council made numerous detailed recommendations regarding residential standards, based on the City’s approved Development Review Guidelines. From the outset of this process in January, Council Member Peters repeatedly told the City that there would be opportunities for the City to help craft standards and regulations that would be placed directly into the legislation. In this spirit, the standards suggested by City Council in the May 20th position letter were submitted as additions to the pending legislation. The current draft of CB-35-2003 does not include these important components in the bill, but rather, the legislation further defers these types of requirements to the CDP review process. The City Council is greatly concerned with the potential for a future developer to negotiate away these requirements during the review process and is also very concerned at what we believe to be an overly generous amount of flexibility written into CB-35-2003 pertaining to these and other standards set forth in the bill.
Based on all of the outstanding issues mentioned above, the City Council recommends that you reject both CB-16-2003 (Draft #2) and CB-35-2003 at this time.
The City Council urges your adoption of the City’s recommendation on this legislation dealing with Planned Environmental Preservation Communities.
Sincerely,
Bowie City Council
G. Frederick Robinson
Mayor
CC: The Honorable Douglas J.J. Peters
The Honorable Samuel Dean
Attachments:
May 20,
2003 Letter to the Honorable Peter Shapiro re:CB-16-2003 (DR-2)
CB-35 Legislation
MEMORANDUM
TO: City Council
FROM: David J. Deutsch
City Manager
SUBJECT: Additional Correspondence re: MSTC
DATE: June 5, 2003
Attached are three letters which were received today from the State of Maryland.
The letter from State Highway Administrator Neil Pedersen addresses the State’s
investment in infrastructure at MSTC. The letter from the Maryland Department
of Planning and the letter from the Attorney General’s Office relate
to the covenants which accrue to the benefit of the State at MSTC.
Attachments