Comments on: Preservation Debate Rages Over Silver Spring’s Falkland Chase Apartments

By: dan reed

dan reed — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:07:01 +0000

I’m not really sure what the density in the concept drawing is (and, BTW, I don’t know when it was drawn up, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the 1990′s), but it’s probably comparable if not higher.

By: David Daddio

David Daddio — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:30:05 +0000

Rob or Dan, any idea how much less dense the “conceptual drawing created by county planners in the 1990s” is compared to what the developers are proposing? I’m assuming that the conceptual drawing has fewer units and less open space. I definitely agree with the “human and neighborhood scale” argument. The Art Deco apartment buildings in Cleaveland/Woodley park do a much better job of develivering density while providing a good relation to the street. This proposal just delivers density while delivering a suburban supply of open space that some people will have time to look at as they drive in the garage but few people will physically use. This is a slightly watered down version of a Le Corbusier city.

The preservation scheme seems pretty balaced. If we were talking about Greenbelt then it would be a different story. It would be positively crazy to preserve this entire complex given the massive change that has befallen Silver Spring since the 1930′s. It would also be an abject failure of the political and planning community to not take better advantage of the billions poured into the metro system.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:56:57 +0000

I’ll second what Elizabeth said. Downtown Silver Spring has a glut of 1-2 bedroom apartments. If you really want to talk about smart growth you need to directly design places where middle income families will want to live that aren’t separate houses on private plots of land.

If someone has the money, why would a 3-4 person family rent a 2 bedroom apartment when there are now full houses for rent for $2000/month in walking distance to the same station?

Only a fraction of the huge Blair complex across the street has more than 2 bedrooms and it’s blocks of buildings with minimal street access and a huge, central surface parking lot. Given a choice, why would a family choose to live there?

Also, I’ll take exception to the idea that the areas needs another grocery store. A Harris Teeter would be nice, but the location is 3 blocks from a Giant and walking distance to a Whole Foods. Retail space is fine, but saying the area needs a Harris Teeter is a bit silly.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:29:42 +0000

Something you didn’t mention is that Falkland Chase South provides rare family housing close to metro–2 and 3 bedroom townhouses with larger living and dining rooms than is common in downtown Silver Spring. Silver Spring has so many “luxury highrises” with 1 and 2 bedroom apartments and very little common space; what is truly scarce near metro is rental housing for families.

By: Rob Goodspeed

Rob Goodspeed — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:29:49 +0000

Mari, short answer, yes many advocates are involved. Montgomery County requires all apartment buildings over 20 units have affordable units. A coalition of groups negotiated the current package, but the law guarantees at least 12% moderate priced units, sometimes more. If D.C. ever got their act together with inclusionary zoning, the concept wouldn't be so foreign to D.C. residents!

By: Mari

Mari — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:09:43 +0000

If your motivation is affordable housing then (hopefully) affordable housing will be what you get. If affordable housing is just a by-product another goal, it is very possible that it will fall by the way-side.
Are there any affordable housing advocates involved with this?

By: dan reed

dan reed — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:02:48 +0000

Awesome write-up of the Falklands controversy, and I’m not just saying so because my name’s in it. Falklands is just one of the many preservation-vs.-development dust-ups in Silver Spring over the past few decades. I definitely think that there’d be less resistance to redevelopment if the projects that replaced local historic buildings were of higher quality or even a similar use. For instance, the ca.1927 Silver Spring Armory was torn down about ten years ago for the Downtown redevelopment project. It was replaced by a parking garage, movie theatre and hotel, while a new community building is only now breaking ground.