A new plan for a North Bethesda mixed-income housing development calls for 50% of the proposed units to be designated as affordable in an effort to increase available housing for county employees, teachers and others priced out of the market, according to the developers.
The Montgomery County Planning Board on Thursday evening approved an amendment to a sketch plan for Rose Village, which calls for the construction of 1,100 housing units to be built near the Pike & Rose neighborhood. The plan presented by Potomac-based developer Willco downsizes the proposed density and slashes the number of housing units included in the initial sketch plan approved by the board in 2021.
Willco officials told the board the company decided to pivot to a project focused more on affordable housing for the site at 6001, 6003 and 6011 Executive Boulevard, due to “economic factors.”
“Wilco was proud of the 2021 sketch plan, but that plan became unviable. … Instead of letting the sketch plan expire, however, Wilco pivoted to a project that emphasizes a critical need in Montgomery County: affordable housing,” Richard Cohen, principal owner of Willco, said during Thursday’s board meeting.
Rose Village was originally envisioned as the “transformation of an aging office park with large surface parking lots into a mixed-use community” with 2,000 housing units in high-rise buildings up to 200 feet tall, according to planning documents.
Willco officials cited inflation, the cost of labor and materials and interest rates factoring into their decision to downsize the development. Cohen said his goal for Rose Village is to provide affordable housing for county government employees, teachers, nurses, firefighters and police. He said many of those workers deal with “long and difficult commutes” from nearby counties that are more affordable to live in.
“I want them to be able to call Montgomery County home,” Cohen said. “… Being in the construction business and being a life-long resident of Montgomery County, I have the desire to do this project for the citizens of this county.”
The revised plan slashed the project’s originally proposed residential space from 2.1 million square feet to 683,000 square feet and reduced the commercial space from nearly 470,000 square feet to 297,000 square feet.
It calls for 700 housing units, 190 of which are to be offered as moderately priced dwelling units (MPDU) designated as affordable for those earning 70% of the area median income, according to planning documents.
In addition, the plan removed about 150,000 square feet of proposed residential development from the 2021 sketch plan to instead be reviewed as a separate, Mixed-Income Housing Community (MIHC) Plan. That category of plan involves a new county regulatory process that expedites the review of projects that include a significant amount of affordable housing, according to planning documents.
Approved by the County Council in 2023, the MIHC framework “requires a 65-day regulatory review of an MIHC Plan, rather than the 90 or 120 days required for a Sketch and Site Plan, respectively,” planning documents state.
That portion of the Rose Village project will be submitted as an MIHC Plan “in the near future,” developers said. The MIHC plan is expected to include 400 residential units, 360 of which will be offered as moderately priced dwelling units and designated as affordable for those earning 60% and 70% of the area medium income, according to developers.
The amended sketch plan calls for the construction of three residential buildings and a commercial building and for retaining an existing office building and parking garage at the site. Two green spaces are also included: a 1-acre civic park in the center of the development and a linear park along Josiah Henson Parkway.
Planning Board Chair Artie Harris thanked the developer for proposing more affordable housing in the plan. “It’s greatly needed and I’m glad you’re tackling this,” he said.
“We are in a time where ideally, we would have loved the high-rise development, but we also know at times you have to be realistic,” Harris said. “We have a housing shortage and you want more housing. … I think it should be a lovely project and I love that you have a 1-acre public square.”
Commissioner Sean Bartley echoed Harris’ sentiment. “A lot of times we look at the developers as guys who have fat pockets, but at the end of the day, there’s risk associated with it and it takes some gravitas to move forward and try something different,” he said.
