SILVER SPRING, MD – Concluding months of debate about
whether a shopping center should be built in the village of Ashton, and citing
concerns about parking and the center’s proposed size and character, the
Montgomery County Planning Board today decided against the commercial
development.
Dozens of residents of the rural community in the northeast
corner of the county testified in favor of or in opposition to the project,
called Ashton Meeting Place. Scores more sent written comments to the Planning
Board.
Ashton Meeting Place would have brought a grocery and other
retail stores, a restaurant, condominiums and offices to the intersection of Routes
650 (New Hampshire Avenue) and 108 (Ashton Road). Today’s hearing was the
second Ashton Meeting Place proposal to go before the Board, which first
reviewed it in April and asked the applicant to address encroachment into
wetland buffers.
While the developer’s revised plan pulled all of the
development out of the wetlands, today Board members expressed concern about
the project’s lack of consistency with the area’s master plan, which guides
development in the community. The plan, approved by the County Council in 1998,
calls for specific design features – such as building size and architectural
style, open space, landscaping, and orientation and connection to main streets
– for projects to fit within the village-like character of Ashton and nearby
Sandy Spring.
For example, the rear wall of the proposed grocery store would have stretched along Route 108, contrary to master plan guidelines for development with a main-street ambiance.
“We see a lack of active storefronts oriented toward the
street,” said Planning Board member Meredith Wellington, joining the unanimous
Board vote against the project. “The plan is not consistent with the master
plan nor does it conform to its guidelines.”
The Board also objected to the developer’s plan for parking, which ran contrary to rules limiting parking in a residential zone.