10400 Detrick Avenue
Kensington, MD 20895
(240) 773-9000 (Phone)
(301) 949-4690 (Fax)
(301) 949-5326 (TTY)
|
||
|
|
10400 Detrick Avenue |
Planning Board approves Hampden Lane projectDevelopment would bring 60-unit building to downtown Bethesda by Bradford Pearson Montgomery County planners have approved a development project in downtown Bethesda that has been mired in controversy and bureaucracy for at least three years. The Montgomery County Planning Board unanimously approved both preliminary and site plans for Hampden Lane, a 60-unit building on the corner of Hampden Lane and Arlington Road in Bethesda. The application for the site was originally submitted in December 2006, but the property had to go before the County Council and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to approve zoning and height changes to the plans. The Court of Special Appeals upheld the council’s decision to allow a zoning change. Prior to the application being submitted for the project, neighbors and landowners were at odds over the land and its proposed uses. The approval was a welcome step for developers. ‘‘It’s been a long process and we’re happy to move forward,” said Jim Alexander, one of the developers for Hampden Lane, LLC. ‘‘We’re going to try and move this along as expeditiously as we can.” The building will stretch 288 feet along Hampden Lane, and at some places will reach a height of seven stories. Other portions of the building, along Arlington Road, will only reach four stories. The height of the building was the main concern for the Planning Board and for neighbors at the hearing. A resident of City Homes, a 29-townhouse community immediately north of the property, argued that the construction of the Hampden Lane building would negatively affect the townhouse community. ‘‘[Hampden Lane] is not compatible with the air and light qualities we all bought into when we bought our homes,” said Brent Polkes, of the Concerned Families of City Homes. Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson argued that development was inevitable in a downtown area. ‘‘Did you assume nothing would be built?” he said. The building would include 88 underground parking spaces, and terraces and grass along Hampden Lane. Currently on the space is a series of five small, detached houses, each with a different owner and used as professional offices. In order to make the project work, the owners of the five houses had to orchestrate a land swap, with the county’s consent. Of the houses, one immediately in the center of the block was going to be turned into supportive housing for the county’s Housing Opportunities Commission. Supportive housing is a step beyond the county’s transitional housing program, and helps provide formerly homeless and needy residents with a place to live. The property owners met with HOC and orchestrated a deal that would be economically viable for the landowners, and not detrimental to HOC. The HOC property is now the end property of the five lots, and a separate plan for construction of a 12-unit, supportive housing building was also approved Thursday. If the HOC building had remained in the center of the three properties, developers argued, the parcels wouldn’t have been developed at as high of a density, if at all. The 60-unit building will sit on the land consolidated by the four remaining houses. Hanson complimented the architect and developers for the design of the 60-unit complex. ‘‘I think this is a good project at the right place in Bethesda and will add considerably to the overall area,” he said. Representatives from neither the 60-unit building nor the 12-unit supportive housing building had a timetable for the beginning of construction, although Maryann Dillon, Director of Real Estate Development for HOC, said she thought HOC would begin working on building permits within the next six months. |
|
©2007 Housing Opportunities Commission, All Rights Reserved. Information current as of 5/28/2008. |
 |
