gaithersblog.net

Due to scheduling conflicts and quorum problems, HPAC is holding a special meeting on November 16, 2006:

HAWP-13B Applicant: Glen Todd
(continued) 7 Brookes Avenue
Tree Removal
Background Material

HAWP-78E Applicant: Warren and Liz Johnson
104 Chestnut Street
Driveway Removal/Replacement
Background Material

The legal notice can be found here, while the background document is here:

NOTICE OF ADOPTION OF A CITY OF GAITHERSBURG ORDINANCE

Pursuant to Section 11 of the City of Gaithersburg City Charter , notice is hereby given that the Mayor and Council of Gaithersburg adopted Ordinance No. O-12-06 on November 6, 2006 , to become effective on November 27, 2006.

AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 24 OF THE CITY CODE ENTITLED “ZONING” SO AS TO CREATE NEW ARTICLE XVI ENTITLED “AFFORDABLE HOUSING REQUIREMENTS” SO AS TO REQUIRE THE INCLUSION OF MODERATELY PRICED DWELLING UNITS AND WORK FORCE HOUSING UNITS IN NEW RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENTS

• City throws in the towel on day-labor center, by Chris Robinson and Sebastian Montes
  

  City Manager David B. Humpton told the mayor and City Council Monday night that he wants to ask the county to take over the search. And on a night that saw most public speakers railing against the center, Humpton’s remarks met strong support from most council members.

  ‘‘I think it’s time the county does have to step up and think a little more broadly about what we’re doing,” said Councilwoman Geri Edens. ‘‘I also agree we need to do what we need to do to alleviate the situation at 17 North Frederick [Avenue].”

  The city is also moving forward with an anti-solicitation ordinance that would prevent day laborers from looking for work, though some council members have said the ordinance is aimed at increasing pedestrian safety. It would be the first such law in the county, and violators would face misdemeanor charges.

  Gaithersburg Councilman Michael Sesma said he was concerned the ordinance might hinder some fundraising events.

  ‘‘We have a number of activities which are actually kind of traditional in small towns and cities like this,” he said. ‘‘I want to make sure such things as Girl Scout cookie sales or whatever such activities as that do not become the victim.”

  City Attorney Cathy Borten said the ordinance primarily focuses on where these activities occur, and that ‘‘you usually don’t find Girl Scouts in the median of a highway.”

  A public hearing on the ordinance is scheduled for Nov. 20.

  The Girl Scout cookie thing was just kind of silly, I think — Ms. Borten also pointed out that cookie sales were covered under a different part of the code which covered sales of goods. Mr. Sesma also mentioned charity car washes — which Ms. Borten thought could be problematic depending on where they stood trying to attract customers — and coin-drop charity drives where people hold out buckets to cars from the median, which Ms. Borten pointed out is already illegal in Gaithersburg.

  The Rev. Simon Bautista of the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, a longtime laborer advocate, admitted that the churches absence was Monday was a ‘‘huge mistake” and said many were reeling Tuesday morning.

  ‘‘It’s a shame that the city is handing over all responsibility, leaving the day laborers at 17 [North Frederick] without any kind of alternative. This is a way to say to them, we don’t care about you anymore, just go somewhere else,” he said.

  The coalition, which also include day-laborer advocates, plans to meet Monday to figure out a way forward, but speaking for himself, Bautista said the total sum of the city’s decisions Monday night show a ‘‘lack of humanity.”

  ‘‘I’m not sure where that will leave us, but it seems like where you have to think of disobedience as an alternative.”

  Personally, I think that this sort of unwillingness to compromise on the part of the advocates has been a serious liability for the laborers in this process. There has never been, to my knowledge, a good argument presented for why a day laborer center has to be right in the middle of Gaithersburg. With laborers arriving every day on Ride-On buses, the “walking distance” argument just doesn’t work. There are all sorts of industrial zones around the periphery of the City — Oakmont Ave, the Airpark, Comprint Ct/Industrial Drive, Crabbs Branch Way, are all possibilities that just aren’t within the City limits. With their stubborn insistence that the facility has to be exactly where they want it (which I suppose is only coincidentally in close proximity to their churches), the advocates are not, in my opinion, doing the laborers any favors.

• City approves affordable housing rules, by Jaime Ciavarra
  

  For the first time in city history, Gaithersburg leaders have adopted affordable housing regulations to help residents with soaring house prices.

  ‘‘There is no reason why any area in Gaithersburg should be 100 percent luxury housing, and that is what the door is open for,” said Linda Gore, leader of the Gaithersburg Affordable Housing Coalition. ‘‘People have thrown around the word slums, but MPDUs and workforce housing is not low income. It is not creating housing for poor people.”

  I think I’d like to know the the rest of Ms. Gore’s statement here, because I’m finding this quote a bit confusing. It sounds like — and please understand that I’m not suggesting that this is what Ms. Gore is trying to say, just that this is what the quote as reported sounds like to me — she is saying that (a) others have called MPDUs and workforce housing “slums”, and (b) that this is not correct because MPDUs and workforce housing are not intended for low income residents and thus are not slums — as if low income residents automatically imply slums. I’ve seen Ms. Gore speak a number of times and, while I am rarely in full agreement with her, I’m pretty sure that she wouldn’t have meant to say this.

  I’d like to deconstruct the “slum” term just a little bit. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a “slum” is a “heavily populated urban area characterized by substandard housing and squalor”. They also define “squalor” as “A filthy and wretched condition or quality.” And the definition of “wretched” that would seem most applicable reads “Of a poor or mean character; dismal: a wretched building.” Other than the fact that the rent charged by slumlords is typically very low and thus affordable by poor people, none of this has anything to do with the people who live there, it has to do with the condition of the properties. I do not think that anyone using the word “slum” at the Council sessions was suggesting that MPDUs or workforce housing amounted to slums; that would be an ignorant thing to say. To my recollection, they were talking about some of the existing housing in Olde Towne being at risk of turning into slums if the area did not soon attract new investment.

  The problem with MPDUs is not that they amount to slums — far from it — but rather that a requirement to build them represents a cost (or at least a missed opportunity for benefit), and thus a disincentive to a potential investor. Given that Olde Towne has already been having trouble attracting investment, the implementation of yet another disincentive is among the very last things that is needed there, and especially not this disincentive, when the area in question has a very high proportion of affordable housing already.

  A concern that I do have in all this has to do with the one thing that seems to always be left out of the discussion. Ms. Gore’s statement as quoted does, however, seem to begin to touch on the problem: MPDUs and “workforce housing” are not going to provide places for the truly impoverished to live. I am unaware — and perhaps some advocate can educate me on this — of any suggestions from the advocates as to where the most disadvantaged among us will be able to live, except to the extent that the advocates are able to prevent the redevelopment or rehabilitation of old, poorly maintained, sub-standard multi-family dwellings that don’t even come close to complying with modern building codes.

  Ms Gore is quoted as saying that “There is no reason why any area in Gaithersburg should be 100 percent luxury housing”. I’d like to turn that around and say that there is no reason why any area in Gaithersburg should be 100 percent “affordable” housing. We are both in favor of diversity, I believe, but we just happen to be focused on different aspects of the affordable housing problem.

• Council narrowly rejects housing moratorium, by Jaime Ciavarra
  

  Existing home sales — including single-family homes, townhouses and condominiums — have decreased by 12.6 percent from August 2005 to August 2006, with median home prices dropping by thousands of dollars in the same time period, according to a September report by the National Association of Realtors.

  So far, at least one developer — RST development, which owns the West Deer Park Apartments — has abandoned its plans for its new project, citing decreasing real estate prices and soaring construction costs.

  And in Olde Towne, which is undergoing a slow and inconsistent revitalization, city officials are considering offering incentives to prospective homeowners to jump-start a planned community of 45 townhouses.