More News

Cost estimates associated with Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett's plan to relocate and consolidate county services could remain a mystery if administration officials employ exceptions to the Maryland Open Meetings Act to brief County Council members in private.

The administration plans to ask the county attorney how much information can be reserved for closed council sessions to discuss the figures involved with the relocation plan, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Diane Schwartz Jones told Gazette reporters last week.

Leggett (D) wants the plan, which would move seven county operations to five separate parcels, to be as close to "cost neutral" as possible and is considering "land swaps" with developers to keep the bottom line at a minimum. Openly discussing land values and offers would compromise negotiations with developers interested in land deals that will be needed to acquire three properties in the upcounty, said Jones, who is heading up the project.

"We're harming ourselves by having those numbers out there publicly," she said. "… You create a ceiling for yourself instead of a floor."

The Maryland Open Meetings Act generally requires public bodies to consider actions in front of the public. It has 14 exclusions, and one allows officials to consider land deals behind closed doors.

The county attorney's office had not yet been asked for guidance on the issue as of Monday, said Clifford L. Royalty, chief of the office's land use division.

Closed sessions can be de rigueur in discussing formal bids, land appraisals and ongoing negotiations, County Council President Michael J. Knapp said.

"However, I think there are still a lot of questions," he said. "… It may be worthwhile to discuss any real bids or offers that may be out there [in closed session]. But to me, that's about a fifth of the discussion."

The council has never received details on the funding, timing and structure of Leggett's plan, which he says will shave $5 million from the $22 million that the county spends on leasing space.

"We're putting a lot of projects on hold that need to get done," said Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown. "… It's a nice grand plan that would do a lot of things, but if it ends up taking seven years to figure it out, then maybe it doesn't work. We don't get forever to try to figure it out."

The first briefing has tentatively been set for Sept. 23. A closed-door session would be a council decision.

Unveiled in Leggett's State of the County address in December, the "Property Use Initiative" — or at least some elements — has drawn opposition from neighbors for the noise, traffic and environmental effects.

New police headquarters, the Department of Homeland Security, the Board of Elections, the public safety memorial and the 1st District police station are planned for the GE Tech Park on Darnestown Road.

At the Finmarc property next door, the county would consolidate the Department of Liquor Control's two warehouses into one.

The county would construct a new Public Training Safety Academy and the Montgomery County Public Schools' food distribution warehouse at the 130-acre Webb Tract near the Montgomery County Airpark.

Opponents also object to the lack of detail they say they have received on the plan, particularly its financial aspects.

Jones defended the plan because it would clear the way for two massive projects that are key to the county's economic future, the Shady Grove Sector Plan and Johns Hopkins University's "Vision 2030" near Gaithersburg.

Both projects could see large-scale housing development.

Several of the county operations are being moved from a 92-acre site on Crabbs Branch Way, clearing the deck for the long-sought redevelopment of more than 2,000 acres around the Shady Grove Metro Station.

"The Shady Grove Sector Plan was sort of a Hail Mary — easy to say, hard to do. Some people in fact said it would be impossible to do," Leggett spokesman Patrick K. Lacefield said.

The 52-acre PSTA land is being eyed for much of the housing needed in the Hopkins project, which would convert a 500-acre area around the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center into a world-class biotech and applied research campus.

The Hopkins project is a central part of a strategic plan drafted by a biosciences task force that Leggett convened to steer the county's future in applied research, Jones said.

The Hopkins plan relies on the Belward farm on Muddy Branch Road for most of the 10 million square feet of new research space. Deed restrictions prevent new housing on the 107-acre property, so Hopkins needs the nearby PSTA property, at Great Seneca and Key West Avenue.

PSTA has been "patched together" in its 40-year history, and without the Leggett plan, the county was set to spend $24 million in upgrades.

In recent weeks, the plans for the Webb Tract have been tweaked, largely in response to the unexpected pushback from neighbors, who worry about traffic and smoke from a "burn building" to train firefighters. The county has promised to use only propane fires, which create less noxious smoke than wood or rubber fires. Another type of training activity may be dropped, but Jones did not want to specify until the decision has been made.

The county has also promised to preserve an eight-acre patch of woods on the Webb Tract known as Lot 7, to buffer homes on Silverfield Circle and St. Regis Way in the East Village neighborhood. A proposed training track for emergency vehicles will be at least 190 feet from the nearest home, Jones said, and the fire-training building will be 1,900 feet from the nearest home.

As for the GE Tech Park and Finmarc properties, the county hopes to ink purchase contracts with owners next month. Leggett's office conducted a market study showing the new police headquarters and the liquor control warehouse would generate $5 million for local businesses.

The four-story, 300,000-square-foot building at the GE Tech Park would need $10 million for move-in costs and another $10 million in long-term renovations, Jones said. Its current lease expires in 2014.  

Consolidating the DLC warehouses would reduce traffic by 40 percent at the site. It would have no retail liquor sales, Jones said. The county intends to build up the green space buffer and will decommission loading docks facing the Lakelands, she said.