A plan to make this Montgomery County neighborhood less boring

Another entry for the ongoing series on what a dork I was: in 1999, I read an article in a magazine about a place called Kentlands, where a kid my age could go hang out with his friend or see a movie all on his bike. Our family had just bought a house in an area in eastern Montgomery County called Fairland, just 30 minutes away from Kentlands, and I wanted to understand if where I lived could be like that too.

That’s how I discovered the 1997 Fairland Master Plan, an effort to keep my neighborhood low-density and suburban, fueled by some legitimate environmental concerns and open hostility to renters and lower-income people moving in. It worked: while residents patiently waited for more places to shop and work, investment leapfrogged over the area into Howard County. In return, we got lots of car dealers, abandoned shopping centers, and entrenched poverty due to a lack of economic opportunities.

What this looked like for me, a teenager: one of my closest friends riding his Razor scooter down a literal highway to hang out with me; biking around a golf course because I couldn’t get anywhere else safely; my dad driving across the street to a job interview; begging for rides to Olney or the Mall in Columbia (Downtown Silver Spring didn’t open until my senior year).

Many teenagers think where they live is boring. I had discovered that boring was actually the point! I had been radicalized.

People want things

In recent years, Montgomery County officials have tried to make things right. The Food and Drug administration and a new hospital moved in; the Intercounty Connector highway (and somewhat janky trail) and Flash bus rapid transit opened; new crosswalks and safer sidewalks began to appear; and plans are slowly (very slowly) moving forward for a new town center in nearby White Oak. This summer, the Montgomery County Planning Board will review the Fairland and Briggs Chaney Master Plan, a vision to make the area more walkable, transit-accessible, and greener.

A key part of this plan is public outreach, which can be hard in an area like Fairland and Briggs Chaney where many residents live in apartment complexes. In response, county planners focused on pop-ups at shopping centers and community events where people already were, and brought in Everyday Canvassing, a local nonprofit that goes door-to-door connecting residents to local government services. I volunteered one afternoon with them last summer, and in general most people we spoke to said they want more things to do, like shops and recreational activities, and to be able to walk to those things.

And that’s what the plan recommends. Instead of building more highway interchanges along Route 29 (Columbia Pike), a busy road connecting Silver Spring and Columbia, the road would instead become a “transit-first corridor” that makes it easier to take transit south to Silver Spring and DC, or north to Howard County. Briggs Chaney Road, a fast, busy road with drive-thrus and car dealers, could become a welcoming “Main Street” with more retail, a green jobs hub and, in the long term, a new campus for Montgomery College. Tying it all together would be a network of new sidewalks, paths, and bike lanes, connecting residents to transit, retail and jobs, and the area’s extensive park system.

You might say this sounds a lot like Pike & Rose in North Bethesda or Rio in Gaithersburg or whatever suburban town center you want to use. It does! But this kind of higher-end development is still rare in eastern Montgomery County–as well as next door in Prince George’s County, despite having some of the wealthiest majority-Black neighborhoods in the country. Changing the policy to embrace walkable, mixed-use development won’t make it happen, but it’s a key first step. After decades of disinvestment, East County is starting to see signs of hope: a proposed grocery store, the first new apartments in 30 years, and a vaguely walkable strip mall, all next to a Flash station. It’s a start!

The recommendation I might be most excited about is for the Verizon data center at Route 29 and Musgrove Road, which sits across from my parents’ neighborhood. It’s been vacant for years, and neighbors (and many, many geese) use the green space around it as a de facto park. The plan envisions making part of it a three-acre park, surrounded by apartments, small-scale retail, and a new Flash station. I bet teenage me would have been stoked to have these things walking distance to home, or at least the promise of them.

Below you’ll find our testimony. Later this year, the Planning Board will vote to approve the Fairland and Briggs Chaney Master Plan, and then it’ll go to the County Council for another round of public hearings and review before they vote to approve it some time next year. In the meantime, you can send your feedback by visiting Montgomery Planning’s website.

Dear Chair Zyontz and members of the Planning Board:

My name is Dan Reed and I serve as the Regional Policy Director for Greater Greater Washington, a nonprofit that works to advance racial, economic, and environmental justice in land use, transportation, and housing throughout Greater Washington. We enthusiastically support the draft recommendations in the Fairland and Briggs Chaney Master Plan.

As this plan notes, previous planning efforts in East County reflected unease around rapid demographic changes in the area, and emphasized keeping things the same. The result is that East County has missed out on the development that has enriched so much of Montgomery County over the past 25 years, pushing people and investment out to Howard County and exacerbating racial and socioeconomic disparities in the process.

We recognize that this plan reflects the Planning Department’s innovative approach to public engagement, including pop-up events and door-knocking, reaching the people we don’t always hear from. I volunteered to knock doors at apartment complexes for this plan, and what I heard is that people like living in East County, but they want more things to do nearby, more places to walk, and more affordable, quality homes.

This plan reflects what they had to say, beginning with its emphasis on bringing jobs and investment back to East County. It recommends making Route 29 a “transit-first” corridor with Bus Rapid Transit and better pedestrian and bicycle access. It recommends road diets for fast, busy roads like Fairland Road and an expanded network of sidepaths and bike lanes to connect people to one of East County’s biggest assets, its substantial park system. It identifies opportunities to transform aging suburban strip malls and office parks into walkable, inviting places with more housing options, more places to shop, more jobs, and more public amenities like a future campus for Montgomery College.

I am personally excited about the vision for the vacant Verizon campus on Musgrove Road as a mixed-use neighborhood, because I grew up nearby. Our family moved to the Fairland Green subdivision, across Musgrove Road, in 1999. I lived there for several years, my parents and brother still live there, and my mother owns a business nearby in Burtonsville. I ran across Route 29 as a teenager to catch the Z8 bus to work, or to hang out in downtown Silver Spring. My dad walks six miles a day. My brother is starting a career and wants to buy a home of his own. The vision laid out in this plan, and the recommendations within it, would benefit a lot of people, including my family.

It’s about time that East County got to take part in the prosperity that other parts of Montgomery County take for granted, and this plan is a good start. We’re hopeful that the Planning Board approves this plan and can work with the County Council to find ways to make these recommendations a reality sooner rather than later. Thank you for your time.