The Eastern Silver Spring Communities Plan Area is home to many diverse communities. The planning team partnered with engagement consultants Brick & Story to create an engagement strategy that:
- Offers a wide variety of ways for residents to engage in the planning process;
- Meets community members where they are by attending community events like festivals, food distributions, and community meetings in the Plan Area; and
- Conducts engagement in multiple languages, in particular Spanish, which is spoken commonly in the Plan Area.
Current phase: Community Visioning
In Fall 2024, the planning team began working with the community to develop a vision the Plan Area over the next twenty years. From September 2024 through December 2024, the team reached over 700 community members through community events, including the Long Branch Festival, two open-houses, and an online questionnaire.
Community visioning will continue through Spring 2025. Contact the planning team to invite them to your next community meeting and make sure you are signed up for the eletter that will share updates on upcoming engagement opportunities!
What we have heard from the community so far
Housing priorities
Respondents from all engagement activities agreed that safety and affordability are the two most important priorities for housing for their families.
Important places
Participants of pop-ups, open houses, and the survey were invited to share places that are important to them and their community. By far the most common responses were local parks, followed by the library and community recreation centers.
Destinations
Survey respondents had the opportunity to share where they spend free time and where they go to shop for necessities like food and clothing. The top two destinations are located outside the Plan Area-Downtown Silver Spring (shopping, and spending free time) and Takoma Park (spending free time). Long Branch, DC, Bethesda, and College Park were also reported as key destinations.
Environmental concerns
87 survey respondents said that extreme heat (over 90 degrees) and 36 said that poor air quality are the issues that have most affected their community over the past five years. At the open houses, participants listed tree loss and neighborhood shade as their top environmental concerns.
Community needs
Parks, entertainment options, healthcare, and other medical services and ways to get around without a car are all highly desired within the Plan.
Long Branch
Long Branch is the core commercial area with the most non-residential uses in the Plan Area. Shopping, eating or picking up food at restaurants, and visiting the library were the top three most common activities that bring people to Long Branch. Parks also received a considerable number of votes, as well as attending community events and taking public transit.
Parks
Regardless of age, race, class, or housing tenure parks are important resource. When asked to select between four reasons why people visit parks in the online survey:
- Over 50% of respondents said they visit parks to enjoy nature
- 9% of respondents visit parks to provide children with an outdoor place to play or to visit a playground
- 2% of respondents visit parks to exercise or play sports.
- 1% of respondents selected spending time with family, friends, and neighbors as the top reason they visit parks
Pre-Scope of Work engagement
The planning team began engaging with the community in Fall 2023, before the approval of the Scope of Work, to better understand the existing conditions of the Eastern Silver Spring area. Through participating in community events, knocking door to door in multifamily communities, attending community meetings, an online questionnaire and interactive map, the planning team gathered information about the challenges facing communities in Eastern Silver Spring. This helped the team prepare the existing conditions analysis (English | Español) and Scope of Work (English | Español), which was presented to the Planning Board in May 2024. From Fall 2023 through Spring 2024, the planning team reached approximately 2,500 people and received direct feedback from nearly 600.
Read a complete report of engagement from Fall 2023 through Spring 2024 (English | Español).
What we heard
Neighborhood perceptions
Most respondents (80%) said they would either probably or definitely recommend their neighborhood to family or friends.
Getting around
While people highly value access to public transportation and ease of walking around, residents across every race/ethnicity and language prefer and/or use a personal car the most often compared to other forms of transportation. Most residents mentioned that the main advantage of a car is access to places they could not otherwise reach.
Pedestrian safety and walkability
University Boulevard and Piney Branch Road were the 2 most cited streets for pedestrian safety concerns, with Franklin Avenue/University Boulevard and Piney Branch Road/Flower Avenue cited as the most unsafe intersections.
The need for sidewalk installation or improvements was cited as the most needed community improvement across most neighborhoods.
Community assets
When asked what residents liked about their neighborhoods, respondents most highlighted access to parks and green spaces, sense of community, location within the DC Metro area, and access to public transportation.
Safety
The area is perceived as safe or somewhat safe by the majority of people engaged (93.3% of questionnaire respondents indicated they feel very safe or somewhat safe in their neighborhood).