SILVER SPRING – County planners finalizing recommendations for a new master plan for Germantown envision the local Montgomery College campus as a stellar example of compact, sustainable development featuring both academics and business. In a report prepared for a Monday Planning Board work session on the college district, planners lay out their vision for sustainable development on the campus, where college officials plan to expand by adding a business park, a hospital and other buildings.
Among the planners’ recommendations are alternative locations for a hospital proposed by college officials on 50 acres of mature forest on the western edge of the campus along I-270. In keeping with a key principle that calls for compact development, county planners illustrate how the hospital could be relocated to improve access – shortening ambulance response times – and use less land, allowing more room for future expansion.
The Planning Board is working this fall to finalize the Germantown draft plan, which updates the 1989 Master Plan for the community. The Board-approved plan will go to the County Council for review and eventual approval later this winter.
In an application to a state health care commission earlier this month, Holy Cross Hospital proposed a five-story, 93-bed hospital and surface parking lot. As another hospital has submitted an application to locate in northern Montgomery County, there is no guarantee the Germantown hospital project will move forward.
However, planners reviewing the college’s plans have recommended against locating it within a priority forest and stream buffer area. The forest, they say, is an important natural resource that protects water quality and clearing it would run counter to the intent of the county’s Forest Conservation Law. The other locations on the college campus do not impact Gunner’s Branch, which is part of the Great Seneca Creek watershed.
During a natural resources inventory, environmental planners identified more than 50 acres of contiguous forest containing more than 400 trees measuring 24 inches in diameter at breast height.
Instead, planners suggest locating the hospital within either of two sites in a 1-million-square-foot business park envisioned as part of the college’s expansion: at the intersection of Observation Drive, which will be extended, and a new street called Cider Press Drive; or along the I-270 ramp where the college had called for “signature” high rise buildings. In both options planners recommend parking structures instead of surface lots to achieve the compact development pattern and allow more room for the college to expand.
The alternatives, planners say, provide faster access to the hospital site from two points rather than limited access by one road that traverses the business park before reaching the hospital, which may be impractical for emergency vehicles. Planners also predict lower development costs for the hospital at their preferred sites because builders would not need to raze forest.
WHO:
Montgomery County Planning Board
WHAT:
Germantown Master Plan Work Session on Montgomery College District
WHEN:
7 p.m. Monday, October 20
WHERE:
Park and Planning Headquarters
8787 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring
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