Gaithersburg master plan change needs scrutiny, Praisner says

County Council was not told about move in March

Now broken off into the new eastern planning area, the Montgomery Village Foundation has come out against the split, bringing the issue to the attention of the County Council, which has input on changes to master plans.

The council met with county planners in March, and were not told of the idea to divide the Gaithersburg plan, council members said. The council will next discuss master plans with county planners in the fall.

‘‘We now know there is this concern... and we will discuss it when we meet with them,” said Council President Marilyn J. Praisner (D-Dist. 4) of Calverton. ‘‘It highlights a need for clarification as to what exactly is going on. We still haven’t discussed it with the Planning Board... so I can’t draw a conclusion one way or the other.”

Master plans are the guiding documents that lay out where certain development can be located, especially in relation to population growth and transportation projects.

The reworked Gaithersburg master plan divides what was originally 15,000 acres roughly along Interstate 270, with pockets of industrial and commercial land on the west, and Montgomery Village and Washington Grove dominating the east.

Although planners have not demarcated exactly where the dividing line will fall, they are driven in part by the need to clear the way for biotech and scientific research projects around Shady Grove, which are in the western half of the master plan, said Park and Planning spokeswoman Valerie Berton.

County planner Nancy Sturgeon first floated the idea at two public forums in the Village last year, drawing a tepid response.

John Carter, head of community-based planning for Park and Planning, told The Gazette in November that planners would seek guidance from the County Council on the split.

But, when planners discussed the Gaithersburg master plan with the County Council on March 27, the split was never broached. A week later, the Planning Board gave planners its go-ahead at an April 5 ‘‘roundtable” discussion on master plans.

‘‘This was seen as pretty minor,” Sturgeon, who was not among the planners who met with the council, said in an interview last month. ‘‘It just didn’t get on anybody’s radar.”

The new planning areas have been dubbed Gaithersburg-West and Gaithersburg-East. Detailed work on updating Gaithersburg-West will not start until this fall, Berton said, and planners will invite public input as the plan takes shape.

County Executive Isiah Leggett has come out against the split, but he does not have direct authority in this case. The County Council reviews master plans twice a year, but it is unclear how far its authority extends.

‘‘The Planning Board does have discretion in deciding planning areas. The council certainly has input... but in terms of setting our own planning boundaries, the Planning Board decides,” Berton said.

While Councilmen Philip M. Andrews and Michael J. Knapp are eyeing the issue, they are not overly concerned.

‘‘I just think it’s not a big deal,” said Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg. ‘‘As long as [planners] understand how the two [halves] relate to each other, it’s reasonable to move forward.”

‘‘When [planners] come over for their semi-annual discussion, it’s generally a haphazard discussion,” said Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown. ‘‘With the Gaithersburg [master plan], it wasn’t far enough down the road [to demand discussion] and I wouldn’t expect them to have come forward with a proposal then.”

The split has its merits, said Knapp, and he is open to looking at it.

‘‘Nothing happens in a vacuum. The reality is, we don’t look at a master plan in isolation... we look at all the surrounding communities anyway,” he said.

The more important issue for Andrews is that the county is behind schedule in updating all its master plans — Gaithersburg’s was last updated in 1985.

‘‘A lot changes in 20 years,” he said. ‘‘We want to keep the pressure on to keep this moving. We need to average three to four [updates] per year, and we’re probably averaging two.”