Montgomery County Planning Department staff are recommending the Planning Board approve proposed changes to sketch plans for a multi-family housing development in North Bethesda that calls for slashing the number of units and removing space for proposed commercial uses to instead build townhomes.
The Planning Board is expected to review and vote on the amended plan submitted by California-based developer Tri Pointe Homes and Wilgus Montrose Associates during its meeting Thursday afternoon at the board’s Wheaton headquarters.
The amended plans encompass 4 acres of a 16.6-acre tract of land between Josiah Henson Parkway and Towne Road. The developers previously received Planning Board approval for a high-rise multi-family development with a total of 604 housing units in mid-rise and high-rise mixed-use buildings, according to planning documents.
The proposed changes would eliminate 466 units and replace them with 138 townhouses. Of the 138 townhomes, 15%, or 20 units will be moderately priced dwelling units, according to the planning documents.
The developers proposed the changes because building the high-rises has become “infeasible” due to “market conditions in the greater White Flint area, overall financing challenges and the large backlog of approved but unbuilt multifamily projects in the area,” according to a statement of justification letter from the developers’ attorney, Robert R. Harris of Lerch Early and Brewer law firm.
Recognizing the county’s “housing crisis remains extremely severe,” developers were looking to provide housing that was more affordable than single-family detached homes, the letter said.
“In order to afford home ownership, many families are turning to two-over-two units, back-to-back townhomes, flats and other more affordable housing types,” the letter said. “Units such as these are particularly rare within Metro Station areas including White Flint, while the desire to live in areas like White Flint is quite high.”
In addition to the change in housing types, the plan amendment also calls for increasing the size of a proposed public park to be known as Eastern Urban Park as a result of the new building layout, planning documents state. The amended plan increases the size of the park from .44 acres to .6 acres.
Developers also are proposing the elimination of structured parking garages and loading areas associated with the initially proposed apartment buildings, planning documents state. Instead, each townhouse unit will have one off-street parking space.
Multi-phase development
The amended plan is part of a larger housing development project, Northpark at Montrose, that proposed a total of 745 dwelling units, which included up to 107 townhomes, 638 multi-family units and 15,000 square feet of ground floor retail. The multi-phase plan is underway with the ongoing construction of 107 townhouse units and 34 stacked two-over-two multi-family units.
The property is near the Pike & Rose mixed-use neighborhood and the Montrose Crossing shopping center at 12055 Rockville Pike.
The first phase of the project will not be impacted by the proposed plan amendment, according to planning documents.
The documents describe the project as “closely related” to a sketch plan amendment for a housing development called Rose Village at 6001 Montrose Road in North Bethesda. Developers for the Wilgus/Northpark project have told county planners the “sales proceeds from Phase I and Phase II of Northpark are intended to support the financial viability of a future deeply affordable project at Rose Village,” planning documents state.
In October, the Planning Board approved a new plan for the Rose Village project that calls for 50% of the proposed units to be designated as affordable in an effort to increase housing available to the county workforce. The new plan proposed 1,100 housing units to be constructed by Potomac-based developer Willco and downsized the proposed density and 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 due to “economic factors.”
“Willco was proud of the 2021 sketch plan, but that plan became unviable. … Instead of letting the sketch plan expire, however, Willco pivoted to a project that emphasizes a critical need in Montgomery County: affordable housing,” Richard Cohen, principal owner of Willco, said during the Oct. 28 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.
