Equity One's plans for Westwood Shopping Center and surrounding properties, via Equity One (with annotation by Bethesda Beat, click to expand)
Many residents opposed to development in the Westbard area of Bethesda say Montgomery County planners have so far produced a Westbard Sector Plan that’s not reflective of the traditional suburban setting they’ve become accustomed to.
To some of those residents, creating a plan that allows for development of six-story buildings on what’s now a surface parking lot for the Westwood Shopping Center isn’t just misguided, it’s undemocratic.
“The sector plan should reflect the desires of the majority of the residents to protect and enhance the quality of life in their neighborhoods,” wrote resident Les Nicholson in a Sept. 23 email to Planning Board Chairman Casey Anderson. “That is the essence of democracy and representative government.”
“Many speakers [at a Sept. 24 public hearing] pointed out that the Planning Board seems to be working for the developers rather than residents and taxpayers,” Danuta Wilson wrote in an email. “We want to live in a SUBURBAN community, not an urban community.”
Based on correspondence on the plan made public by the Planning Department, at least a dozen residents in the Westbard area share Wilson’s and Nicholson’s opinions.
But according to Anderson, it’s a rallying cry based on a misunderstanding of the true role of the professional county planners who design area sector plans and the Planning Board commissioners who approve them.
“If we became political in that sense and we said, ‘We’re taking a poll and most of the people say X and not Y,’ what would be the point of having a Planning Board? Seems to me that we’re not useful if all we do is try to figure out which way the politics work. That’s a job for elected officials,” Anderson said, “and that’s an appropriate job for them. But we’re not the junior county council. If we start acting like we think we’re elected officials, then we’re superfluous.”
Royce Hanson, who served as Planning Board chairman from 1972-1980 and again from 2006-2010, said the question of who planners really serve is one he has “thought a good bit about.”
In a talk last year on the county’s planning history, Hanson said negotiating the desires of developers and the protests of existing residents during the 1970s “was a religious experience.” He compared the debate over the development of Friendship Heights during that time, which included protest marches and plenty of legal wrangling, to Caesar’s Battle of Pharsalus.
“While all public servants—elected and career—have a dual ethical obligation to both present and future, planners have a special obligation to future generations,” Hanson said. “Planners are not elected. Their role is advisory in preparation of master plans. A plan is a policy for the future. Its constituency is not merely the current inhabitants of a place, but those not yet born or living there.
“Even if residents and land owners were in perfect agreement on what they like, planners should not concur without considering future needs and how that area fits into the larger county and regional system and functions as part of it,” said Hanson, who also described planners as “quasi-trustees because their word is not final.”
The County Council will make final decisions on the Westbard plan once the Planning Board submits its approved version late this year or early next year.
Many residents in Westbard are opposed to the Westwood Shopping Center redevelopment envisioned by property owner Equity One. But some residents oppose other redevelopment that could come about if the Planning Board recommends certain building heights and densities along Westbard Avenue and River Road.
Some have turned their attention to lobbying council member Roger Berliner, who represents Bethesda, to get involved in the process now, before the plan is submitted to the council.
“If you see something you think is wrong now, you should be talking to the planning commission and other people now and saying, ‘No, no, no, no, this is the wrong direction,’” one resident told Berliner at an Oct. 26 town hall meeting.
Berliner, who has yet to take a position on the development proposed for the area, countered that it’s not his role to step in at this point.
“I feel like there’s a reason why we hire planners and have professional staff and it doesn’t mean I agree with them, but I want them to do their best work and then I want to hear what’s the rationale,” Berliner told the resident. “I’ve been very forceful in expressing my concerns that this plan is going to be very awkward at best, and there’s no question we can do better than what we have there now. So it’s finding that sweet spot.”
