Recap of last week’s worksession and overview of tomorrow’s City Council meeting

We have a full agenda for our Council meeting this week, with a lot on the agenda from last week’s worksession. We will also be voting on the FY 11 budget, which I’ve discussed quite a bit on this listserve. If you have any final questions or comments about the proposed budget, please let me know before tomorrow night! Since we already had a public hearing on the budget, the Council will only accept comment on any proposed amendments to the budget.

First, though, a RECAP OF LAST WEEK’S DISCUSSION WITH BOARD OF EDUCATION REPRESENTATIVE HEATHER ILIFF. Unfortunately, Board of Education representative Rosalind Johnson was recovering from an illness and was not able to make it, so we couldn’t really get answers to some of the questions I had that were specific to north College Park. Representative Heather Iliff, however, was there and able to answer some of my questions. She talked much about the difficulties that the Board is facing in terms of financing – even though the County is actually growing in overall and per capita income and losing students (causing a loss in state support), the County is getting less money to devote to the schools. As a result, the Board has had to make many cuts, including eliminating parent liaisons, increasing class size, and laying off teachers. I asked about the prospects for the expansion of Hollywood school, and Ms. Iliff responded that we need to continue to push for this, as there isn’t much money in the capital budget for the schools.

The City Council asked Ms. Iliff about what we should ask of candidates who are running in this year’s Board of Education election. Ms. Iliff is not running for reelection, and redistricting will make it so that the whole City will be in the district of her replacement. Ms. Iliff suggested that we focus on the candidate’s commitment to school reform, including the FIRST (or “Financial Incentives & Rewards for Supervisors & Teachers”) program, commitment to ensuring that school administrators are active in working with teachers in classrooms, and working to restructure high schools to better train students to enter the workforce or go to college.

Now, a summary of tomorrow night’s agenda:

1. PRESENTATIONS – RECOGNITION OF COLLEGE PARK’S OUTSTANDING ESSAYISTS IN THE MARYLAND MUNICIPAL LEAGUE “IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD…” ESSAY CONTEST – One of the pleasures of being on Council every year is seeing the finalists from this essay competition every year, when students from each of the city’s elementary schools present their ideas about how to run the City to the Council. This year, we have one student each from Paint Branch, Holy Redeemer and Berwyn Christian, and two from Al-Huda.

2. ADOPTION OF ORDINANCE 10-O-03, INCREASING FEES FOR RENTAL HOUSING OCCUPANCY PERMITS, PARKING PERMIT FEES AND METER FEES, AND PARKING FINES. As I’ve said before, the City is increasing a number of our fees to make up for lost revenue in other areas and to keep these fees, which have not been increased in many years, in line with inflation. The public hearing on these increases was held a couple weeks ago, and there was little opposition to any of the increases. Because these increases are minor and these fees have stayed constant over many years, I believe they will pass.

3. ADOPTION OF THE FY 11 OPERATING AND CAPITAL BUDGET. The City will also be voting tomorrow night on the overall budget, after two day-long worksessions, a public hearing, a town hall meeting, and much discussion on this listserve and in the community. I believe that the city staff and the Council have worked together to produce a budget that, despite significant revenue cuts, has only a limited impact to City services and no tax increase. Although the increased fees are unfortunate, I feel that the fee increases are the best way to protect residents and keep damage to our city to a minimum. I’m afraid we have more difficult times ahead of us in the years to come, and the Council may have to make more difficult choices in future years. But for now, we can maintain all of our City services at the same level. There are a couple proposed amendments that have come up since the public hearing – an amendment that Councilmember Perry introduced to eliminate funding to the Boys & Girls Club, and an amendment to set aside $3,500 for the Meals on Wheels program that I proposed.

1) AMENDMENT TO SET ASIDE FUNDING FOR THE MEALS ON WHEELS (introduced by me). I feel that the Meals on Wheels program provides a real benefit to seniors in our community, who are often on a fixed income. Unfortunately, Meals on Wheels has taken a hit from private vendors over the past couple of years, and has had to purchase a new refrigerator and other items to keep going. This small amount of funding proposed will help the program to keep its costs down for the seniors who use its services, and I hope my colleagues on the Council will agree to support it.

2) AMENDMENT TO ELIMINATE FUNDING FOR THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB (introduced by Mr. Perry). I do not support this amendment. Like many other programs around the City, the Boys & Girls Club has taken a hit in its private funding as well recently, and we have already proposed cutting its funding almost in half this year. There are few programs available to teenage youth in our community, and I believe that there is a lot of value to extracurricular programs for youth that age. Some folks have expressed concern about the fact that the Boys & Girls Club has not presented its budget to the City Council in the past couple of years, and that there is little accountability. I agree with this concern, and I think it applies to all organizations that receive direct grants from the City. I asked the City to put on the June worksession a discussion of requirements for organizations that receive direct grants from the City, so we will be asking all of these organizations (including the College Park Arts Exchange and Boys & Girls Club) to come to present a report to the Council.

5. APPROVAL, WITH CONDITIONS OF THE DETAILED SITE PLAN FOR THE CHINESE BIBLE CHURCH. As I noted last week, the Chinese Bible Church on Autoville Drive North is looking to expand its facilities. The expansion would include a recreational facility for church members, classrooms, and offices. No residents have expressed concerns about additional traffic that the expansion would cause, and I understand from our worksession last week that the Church has worked very closely with residents in north Autoville to make sure that the proposed expansion will not have a detrimental impact on the neighborhood. There are still some matters to work out, and the proposed motion on the floor tomorrow night proposes a couple of changes to the Church’s detailed site plan to improve the architecture. One concern I have is the environmental impact of the expansion, given that it is located close to the Paint Branch and in the flood plain. We have asked the developer to consider using pervious pavement whenever possible and provide additional plantings to help manage stormwater on the property. All in all, I appreciate that the Church has worked with residents to make this project acceptable to the community, and I’m glad that we can work with the Church to provide additional recreational facilities.

6. APPROVAL, WITH CONDITIONS, OF THE CONCEPTUAL SITE PLAN OF DOMAIN COLLEGE PARK. The Domain is a proposed luxury residential development just west of campus, on land that is not currently part of College Park but it proposed to be annexed. The project developers have come forward with a conceptual site plan (a preliminary site plan showing what the general layout of the development will be and the relationships of various elements, including the residences, retail, recreational facilities and other amenities). The development includes residential and retail space on a 2.66-acre site at the southwest corner of Mowatt Lane and Campus Drive, and is based on a charrette held in April with the City. The development would include 258 units of market rate multifamily apartments and 11,000 square feet of retail.

The City and the developer had a disagreement over the interpretation of the required public amenities, and the City has asked that the developer, in order to ensure that it meets the required recreational amenities, place a public amenity, such as a park, in an area just adjacent to the development, with a pedestrian walkway to this amenity. The City has also asked the developer to change the architecture of the project, if possible, to make it less imposing at the corner of Campus and Mowatt, and to add a sculpture or a fountain to the streetscape. The City has also asked the developer to set aside right-of-way to ensure sufficient room for the Purple Line to come through on Campus Drive, and to ensure left-turn lanes into the development and the parking lot across Campus Drive. Although the project will add a dense new development to the west side of College Park, I feel that it is close enough to the university and is targeted to the university community, so it will reduce traffic by bringing people closer to where they need to go to work and study.

Finally, I asked last week about the developer’s intention to pursue LEED certification – which the developer said it would not be likely to accomplish. Unfortunately, the developer said that it is very difficult to achieve LEED certification for wood-based construction, which is apparently going to be the primary material for this development. The developer said it will still pursue LEED certification, so I will continue asking about this and seeing if it continues to do so in the development process.

7. ADOPTION OF RESOLUTION TO EXTEND PARKING GARAGE BOND ANTICIAPTION NOTES (BANs) WITH SUNTRUST BANK THROUGH OCTOBER 31, 2010. In March 2008, the City issued $9.3 million in Bond Anticipation Notes (BAN’s) in order to finance the construction of the parking garage on Knox Road – a tax-exempt BAN for $8.65 million and a taxable BAN (to construct the retail space, which couldn’t be done with tax-exempt funds) for $650,000. The BAN’s were set to expire on May 1, 2010, but because we have favorable interest rates, it is beneficial for the City financially to extend the BANs as long as we can. SunTrust has agreed to extend them until October 1, 2010, with the same low-interest rate.

8. PURCHASE AWARD TO METRIC PARKING FOR 13 “AURA” PAY STATIONS IN DOWNTOWN PARKING GARAGE AND LOTS. The City staff has negotiated a good deal on upgraded parking stations to put in the downtown lots and parking garage. At this point, the staff proposes trading in four pay stations (2 on the City Hall parking lot, and 2 in the parking garage), and purchasing up to 9 new ones (5 in the College Park Shopping Center lot, 2 on Lehigh Road/Sterling Place, and 2 additional machines in the parking garage). These new pay stations will resolve some of the problems that visitors have had with the existing pay stations – they do not often accept dollar bills and take a long time to process credit cards. This plan seems to make sense to me – these are the most commonly used lots, and the parking garage has already seen significant lines for payment at these stations, before Ledo’s has even opened. The funding for these pay stations will come from the City’s Master Meter and Public Parking Garage capital improvement project – mostly money from business contributions and parking fees and fines – and an $8,690 contribution from the IT department in the City’s general fund.

9. AWARD OF CONTRACT TO OPTOTRAFFIC FOR SPEED CAMERAS. The City has proposed awarding a contract to pursue speed camera installation in school zones around the City to Optotraffic, a contractor which Cheverly is now using for its speed cameras. The contractor would install the speed cameras in locations around the City, at no cost to the City, with a portion of the revenue from the speed cameras going to the City for road projects. The City will be able to choose between a number of sites that the contractor believes will generate sufficient income, and will be responsible for reviewing images of violators and issuing citations, but we should be able to cover those costs through the citations received. We will still have to hold public hearings before we place the cameras in any specific location, and due to the ordinance that the Council passed last month, we will have to wait until students are back in town to install any of the cameras. I will keep you all posted about proposed locations for placement of the cameras.

10. APPOINTMENTS TO BOARDS AND COMMITTEES. Thanks to Pam Toschik and Stephen Jascourt for agreeing to continue their service on the Committee for a Better Environment.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or comments, and thanks for reading!

Patrick

Tomorrow’s Council Worksession

We have a full agenda tomorrow night, including a meeting with our Board of Education representatives and review of a detailed site plan for an expansion to the Chinese Bible Church on Autoville Drive and a conceptual site plan for the new Domain mixed-use project located at Campus Drive and Mowatt Ln. As a result, the worksession will start at 7 pm instead of the usual 8 pm.

The following items are on the agenda:

1. DISCUSSION WITH BOARD OF EDUCATION REPRESENTATIVES HEATHER ILIFF AND ROSALIND JOHNSON. Every so often, the Council asks our Board of Education representatives to come before us to discuss what is going on in our schools. I sent a number of questions to the Board of Education representatives I would like them to address – specifically:

May 18, 2010

1) how they intend to address the overcrowding at Hollywood Elementary School and what the City can do to help resolve this ongoing issue. I would like to know the prospects for an expansion at the current Hollywood site, as well as whether the Board of Education is considering placing a new school at the Board of Education property between Huron Street and Davis Hall;
2) what after-school activities exist at Hollywood Elementary School, and if there are additional ways that the City, through its Youth and Family Services Program, and the Park and Planning Commission, through its facility in Hollywood, can collaborate with the schools to expand after-school options for students; and
3) what the Board of Education is doing to combat obesity in our schools. I ask this for two reasons relating to initiatives in our community right now – Ms. Caskey, the principal of Hollywood Elementary, has undertaken an effort to encourage more students to walk to school, and I’m interested in knowing what the Board of Education might be doing to promote this, and our Committee for a Better Environment is looking at more ways to promote use of healthy, locally-grown foods.

If people have other questions or concerns you would like us to raise with the Board of Education representatives, please let me know!!

2. PRESENTATION/UPDATE FROM CONSULTANT ERIC SMART ON DOWNTOWN REDEVELOPMENT. Over the past couple of years, the City has been looking at the possibility of working with a developer to put a full-service hotel on the current City Hall site. The Council discussed possibly finding a new location for City Hall, in order to build a bigger city hall that can accommodate all of the current staff and possibly allow for more. The City used grant funding to hire a consultant to discuss our options, and also issued a request for proposals and met with a couple possible developers. Unfortunately, though, the project stalled due to the current economic situation, which made the developers reluctant to go forward, and also stalled the East Campus project, limiting the City’s options for new City Hall sites. We now have about $7,000 of grant funds left for this project, and the staff is recommending that the Council discontinue the development process for the hotel. The consultant will be available to talk about our options, and see how we can move forward and look toward redeveloping the City Hall site when the economy turns around and we’re able to find a location for a new city hall.

3. DETAILED SITE PLAN FOR THE CHINESE BIBLE CHURCH. The Chinese Bible Church, located approximately 800 feet south of Cherry Hill Road on Autoville Drive North, is looking to expand. There is currently a single-family residence just north of the church, and the church has purchased that land and wants to expand its building. The expansion would include a recreational facility for church members, classrooms, and offices. The current sanctuary has about 280 seats, and the church regularly sees attendance at about 330-350 people. Currently, the church offers services in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, and holds two services concurrently. As a result, one of the services takes place in the church basement. The church says that its attendance would not increase, but it would offer more facilities for current members. The church would not pose any additional traffic burden during peak traffic times, because it has said that it would not have any church activities (except for ordinary business and counseling services) during morning and evening rush hour times. I have some concerns about the amount of traffic that this causes for the surrounding residential neighborhoods, but since the proposed attendance for church services would not change, I want to hear if the residents have had any concerns about traffic for people attending the services in the past. Some of the concerns regarding the property include the following:

1) The church wants about a 50-foot setback from Autoville Drive for the addition, in line with the current building, but the US 1 sector plan requires a much smaller setback. The church will be adding landscaping and trees to allow for a consistent setback along the street, and it has requested an exception to the setback to allow it to maintain continuity between the existing building and the addition. Because the church built the existing building at a time when the required setback was greater, this exception will probably be allowed.

2) The current proposed design for the building has a long wall with few breaks, which the City staff believes will make the wall seem more imposing. The proposal will be to add some features to break it up, such as projections or recesses in the wall.

3) The Church proposes to increase parking, and to work with the bank across the street to allow for additional parking. Although the church is located near the Paint Branch, the church may use impervious pavement, except for “overflow” parking areas and areas required for emergency access only. I would like to see the Church make an effort to use more pervious pavement, especially given its proximity to the Paint Branch.

4) The Church is located in a large “network gap” in the County’s green infrastructure – basically, this means a break in forested and natural land, which creates obstacles for wildlife. The network gap in this case is large and has been around for decades, so it’s likely impossible to fix this problem. But I would like to ensure that the Church is going to work to have adequate tree coverage and try to mitigate the impact of its development and the surrounding development on the natural infrastructure.

4. CONCEPTUAL SITE PLAN FOR THE DOMAIN MIXED-USE PROJECT AT CAMPUS DRIVE AND MOWATT LN. Any proposed mixed-use, before it puts together a detailed site plan, has to submit a conceptual site plan for approval, with an approximate layout of the buildings and an overview of the purpose of the development, as well as general grading, woodland and tree preservation areas, storm water management concepts, recreational facilities and architectural form of the buildings. The Domain project is a proposed 5-story luxury housing and retail development just west of the entrance to Campus. This land is not currently part of the City of College Park, but the City has an agreement with the developer to annex the project, in exchange for an agreement that the landowner will get a rebate on real property taxes for the first five years after it opens. The development will largely have 5-10,000 square feet of retail fronting Campus Drive, with 275 units of residential behind it. According to a preliminary traffic study, the roads west of campus will be able to accommodate the new development. Last month, the City and the developer hosted a charrette to discuss the layout of the property and get input from the University and local residents, churches and businesses who will be impacted by this property.

The staff has expressed a number of concerns with the conceptual site plan, including the traffic flow into and out of the project and proposed improvements to both Mowatt Ln. and Campus Drive. The staff recommends adding medians to both streets, with left turn lanes into the new development as well as a left-turn lane into the University parking lot north of Campus Drive. The project already includes sufficient right-of-way to allow for the Purple Line to go by the project if MTA chooses an alignment that brings it down Campus Drive to the traffic circle at Mowatt Ln. The staff also expressed concern about: 1) the proposed Floor Area Ratio (FAR), which indicates a much higher density than is typical for the recommended medium suburban land use. In order to get the desired FAR, the developer has to provide additional amenities than what it is currently offering, and the staff recommends adding an additional public amenity between the University United Methodist Church and the new development, and a pedestrian path on the south end of the development; 2) adding additional relief to the proposed architecture at the corner of Campus Drive and Mowatt Lane to make it less imposing, and adding a sculpture or fountain.

I also have my own concerns about the development – first, that the developer has already said it has no intention to make the development LEED-certified. I believe that the University and the City should be working to set an example for sustainable development and making all of its new developments, at minimum, LEED-certified. I also have some concerns about the traffic that this project will bring, although I think that the amount of public transportation around the area, and the fact that the project will bring people who use the University closer to campus, will actually help to reduce traffic rather than increase it. Finally, I have questions about who the development intends to attract for luxury housing, especially in this economy. I do not believe that students can afford luxury-style housing, and I’m not sure that the market is there for faculty and staff who want to live close to the university.

Please let me know if you have any comments about this project or any questions.

5. CHANGE OF NAME OF THE COMMUNITY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT TO “YOUTH, FAMILY & SENIORS DEPARTMENT.” The City staff, after some questions during the budget worksession, is considering changing the name of the Community Resources department to the “Youth, Family & Seniors Department,” to make it more clearly reflect the services that the department provides. If we change the name, the City would keep all of the current letterhead until it runs out, so it wouldn’t cost the City much to do. I don’t have anything against it, although I don’t think that calling it the “community resources” department is really unclear. I’ll see what my colleagues think about it tomorrow.

6. EXTENSION OF THE BOND ANTICIPATION NOTES FOR THE CITY PARKING GARAGE. In March 2008, the City issued $9.3 million in Bond Anticipation Notes (BAN’s) in order to finance the construction of the parking garage on Knox Road – a tax-exempt BAN for $8.65 million and a taxable BAN (to construct the retail space, which couldn’t be done with tax-exempt funds) for $650,000. The BAN’s were set to expire on May 1, 2010, but the City was not able to secure funding to replace the BAN’s on time. The City has negotiated an agreement with SunTrust (who issued the BAN’s) to extend the BAN’s to September 30, 2010, with additional interest and a payment of $2,500 to SunTrust. The Council will be considering a resolution to do this tomorrow evening.

7. FY 2011 BUDGET. The Council will consider whether there are any final changes to the budget based on the testimony at last week’s public hearing. One possible item to consider will be more stable financing for the Meals on Wheels program, whose volunteer staff testified last week that they have had some problems keeping in funding in this economy. Otherwise, we’ll see if my colleagues propose any last-minute changes tomorrow night.

8. AWARD OF CONTRACT FOR CITY DOWNTOWN PARKING PAY STATIONS. The City installed new multi-space pay stations during the summer of 2009, and many people have complained about problems with the pay stations it is difficult to get them to accept bills, and they take a long time – up to 50 seconds – to process credit card payments. I’ve heard complaints about people getting parking tickets in the time that it takes to register payment. The City staff has spoken with the vendor, and is now considering upgrading for the remaining pay stations to a new, higher model, which the vendor is offering at a discount. The newer model has a better layout for the buttons, has a better bill acceptor, and only takes 8-12 seconds to process credit card payments. The vendor has also offered us a greater discount to replace the old machines with the newer model. Between money set aside in the City Master Meter C.I.P. project, the Public Parking Garage C.I.P., and the 2011 Parking Enforcement program, the City could afford 2 trade-in machines in the City Hall parking lot, 2 trade-in machines in the parking garage, 2 new pay stations in the parking garage, 5 pay stations at the College Park Shopping Center, and 2 pay stations at Lehigh Road/Sterling Place. I have some questions about the making sure that the new pay stations will be good enough, and I want to make sure we don’t spent money on new machines that don’t work. I’d like to make sure that, if we continue to have performance problems with the new machines, that we can get a replacement in the future. I would also like to make sure that residents and visitors to our downtown area don’t get tickets because of problems with the pay stations, as I’ve heard has happened in the past. I plan to ask a lot of questions about the pay stations.

9. SPEED CAMERA VENDOR CONTRACT. State legislation passed in 2009 and amended in 2010 allow the City to pursue the use of speed cameras in school zones, which include any area within 1/4 mile of a school, public or private. This basically covers all of Rhode Island Ave. and Baltimore Ave. in north College Park, as well as Edgewood Road and University Blvd. The 2010 amendments allow any city in Prince George’s County, with the permission of the County, to administer this program themselves, instead of relying on the County. The state legislation requires that the City give notice and hold a public hearing regarding the location of the proposed speed cameras. The legislation also requires that a driver be going at least twelve miles per hour before he or she can receive a citation.

The City is now considering a contract with Optotraffic, a company that the town of Cheverly is also using for its speed camera program. The contractor would provide the cameras and operate and maintain them at no cost to the City, but would take a portion of the ticket revenue (39%) to cover its costs. The City will be able to choose between a number of sites that the contractor believes will generate sufficient income. The City will be responsible for reviewing images of violators and issuing citations, but we should be able to cover those costs through the citations received.

10. CONSIDERATION OF A POSITION ON COUNTY ORDINANCE RE: BOATS. Councilmember Perry requested review of pending County Council legislation regarding parking of boats and boat trailers in residential areas. The County’s Planning, Zoning and Environmental Committee has voted in favor of the legislation, which would limit boat parking to areas at least 8 feet from the street, prohibit storage of boats longer than 20 feet in residential lots smaller than 2 acres, and require that the boats be covered and parked on a dust-free surface (e.g., concrete or asphalt). City staff believes that the impact of this will be minimal. I don’t see storage of many boats in north College Park – especially not large ones – and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one parked on the street. So I don’t believe that this is a problem, and I don’t feel strongly either way. If anyone has any thoughts on this, please let me know.

11. BOARDS AND COMMITTEES. There are currently vacancies on the following boards and committees for District 1 residents: the Airport Authority, the Animal Control Board, the Animal Welfare Committee, the Cable Television Commission, the Committee for a Better Environment, the Education Advisory Committee, the Rent Stabilization Board, the Tree and Landscape Board, and the Veterans Memorial Improvement Committee. Please let me know if you are interested in any of these.

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Patrick