January 2004
President’s Letter – George Barnes
On behalf of the Officers and Board of WMCCA, I would like to wish all our members Health and Happiness in the New Year. Your commitment to WMCCA is what makes it possible to for us to continue to protect our Master Plan and the character of our neighborhoods, our parks and stream valleys, and our roads, and we look forward to seeing more of you at our meetings in the coming year. Your participation, ideas and comments keep us a powerful and respected voice in the halls of the County Council and the Planning Board.
Our first meeting of 2004 will be for you, our members. We will not have a guest this month. Instead, we invite you to come and bring your concerns and questions about issues, processes, procedures, anything that you would like to see us work on in the coming year. We will have updates on a number of ongoing issues. So please plan to join us on the 14th.
Our thanks to Wayne Goldstein of the Montgomery County Civic Federation for making us aware of a development plan for the Stoneyhurst Quarry on River Road. The developer is seeking to buy out of his requirement for MPDU’s (moderately priced dwelling units). Under current county policy a developer may make a contribution to the county’s housing fund in lieu of building the required units. There are several problems with this policy both in general and specific to this site. During our Master Plan approval process and since then on several occasions during discussions of MPDU’s at the County Council, several members have sited Potomac for not having it’s ‘fair share’ of the affordable housing stock in the County, and in fact insisted on designating a former school site on Brickyard Road as a potential affordable housing site in the Master Plan over the wishes of the neighborhood that the site become a park. We will talk over the other problems with the buy out policy at the meeting and we will certainly bring these issues to the Planning Board when the plan comes before them and to various members of the Council as well.
Issues and updates:
- Planning and Zoning:
- Bullis School expansion
- Hall Road
- Lloyd Road
- Environment:
- Blockhouse Point Master Plan
- Greenbriar Local Park
West Montgomery County Citizens Association Newsletter
P. O. Box 59335
Potomac, MD 20854-9335
President, George Barnes
The Newsletter is published monthly, and the Board of Directors meets each month. We welcome any suggestions for upcoming meeting topics and ways to further utilize our web site (www.wmcca.org).
Check the web site for information on issues we are working on.
West Montgomery County Citizens Association 