Apartment revisions on display

Landy property off Belcrest Road to have more than 1,200 units; some question impact of traffic, schools

The county granted the property design a preliminary approval in 2001, but Blumberg’s development team has revised the proposal several times since.

The revisions are radically different from the 2001 approved proposal, said Stuart Eisenberg, an at-large member of the Hyattsville Planning Committee.

‘‘It’s a similar use but the placement of the buildings, the concentration and massing of the structure, the configuration of parking are a radical reconfiguration of the project as it was approved, but not a change in the proposed use,” he said.

‘‘It was a straightforward housing development. ... But it isn’t really raising the bar for development in the area. So the developer sought to meet the rising bar of development quality that has been activated in that area.”

Eisenberg said Blumberg’s development team presented proposed changes to the Planning Board in 2006.

The property will no longer have EIFS, a synthetic stucco material, on the exterior and will be either brick or pre-cast concrete blocks. The project also has incorporated stormwater management by providing some green roofing on its buildings, Eisenberg said.

The developers had previously proposed underground parking, but have changed those plans. ‘‘Instead of digging a hole for parking, we’re going to build a structure and put the architecture around it,” said Tim Madden, an architect and landscape architect for the project.

Also, the units will be built as apartments with the hope to eventually be sold as condos.

Developers said that if everything were to move smoothly, it would take about eight years for the project to be completed.

Madden said only 17.7 acres of the 34-acre property are going to be disturbed by construction.

While some residents said the revisions were a step in the right direction, many still said they felt the development coming to their neighborhood would cause problems with traffic and overcrowding in schools.

Regarding traffic, Megan Bramble, an attorney for the developers, said the goal of the property is to get people to use Metro and public transit.

Madden said that even though each unit is slotted to have two parking spaces, the idea is for residents to leave their cars at home and walk to the Metro.

‘‘Instead of driving to the Metro and having to pay to park there, residents would be encouraged to leave their cars in their parking spots,” he said.

Also, in an attempt to curb the likely increase of children attending the area’s elementary schools, Bramble said an undetermined percentage of the property will be set aside for adults age 55 and older. Those adults will not be permitted to have anyone age 18 or younger living with them.

But University Hills resident Tim Hunt is still concerned about the effect of the development on classroom size.

‘‘On the one hand, [the developers say] there’s going to be minimal impact on the schools, yet on the other hand, in their promotional materials, where they have people pictured on the promotional materials, it’s families with children. So I don’t understand the inconsistency behind that,” he said. ‘‘The presentation sounded like a sales pitch for residents that might want to move in there. It just didn’t address any concerns. Particularly it didn’t address the concerns with the schools.”

But Eisenberg said that it’s not the developer’s job to solve the county’s issues with schools being overcrowded.

‘‘It’s really to my mind, and legally, a county issue. The county has to provide for adequate schools. It would be a poor public policy to hit every developer to solve existing problems that require coordination and planning,” he said. ‘‘It’s not their job to plan for the county’s school needs, but it is the community’s job to point these things out.”

E-mail Maya T. Prabhu at mprabhu@gazette.net.