Metro Fails To Nurture Development, Report Finds

Developers hoping to build at New Carrollton, a major train hub by the Capital Beltway, have come and gone since 1988, with no results, Porcari said. He has made transit-oriented development a top priority.

Metro officials said they agree with the panel's conclusions and are changing how they do business. General Manager John B. Catoe Jr., in a letter to board members, acknowledged the agency's cumbersome process for reviewing proposals and lack of planning. "I intend to take steps to move forward consistent with these recommendations," he wrote.

Catoe, hired in January to fill the top job at the nation's second-busiest subway system, laid off most of the real estate office this spring after seeing a draft of the panel's report, several people familiar with his decision said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said that Catoe had noted early in his tenure that he would trim departments that did not provide key services, among them real estate.

When trains started to carry commuters in 1976, Metro planners envisioned mini-cities springing up around the stations where riders could eat, shop, live and work. But for Metro, land use was never a priority in practice, as general managers focused on running the system day-to-day and on opening stations and lines, several task force members said.

Instead of aggressively pursuing deals with developers, Metro's real estate officials took a passive role and often let competing internal departments paralyze decision-making, the report says.

Many proposals to introduce dense development face local opposition that slows approval. But better leadership from Metro would help defuse tensions among community members, who often learn about a proposal late in the process because the agency isn't active, several panel members said.

"By the time a proposal has come forward, people end up feeling surprised," said G. Neel Teague, senior vice president of McLean-based Stout and Teague, which is building a project at Huntington Station and tried for years to develop at New Carrollton before pulling out. He is a task force member.

Some officials caution that Metro has had to navigate through governments that might have differing visions of transit-oriented growth.

"You can't dictate to a locality what to do," said T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee) a Fairfax County supervisor who serves on the Metro board. "Land use remains a local political decision." He said, for example, that development at Fairfax stations took off slowly because the county was overly focused on providing parking for commuters.

Development at the stations generates about $15 million a year in revenue for Metro from selling or leasing its land to builders. With Metro facing a growing budget shortfall in the next year, Catoe plans to recommend a fare increase this month.

But if the agency could do a better job managing its real estate, it would provide more revenue in the long term, said Nat Bottigheimer, Metro's chief of planning and development, who was recently promoted to turn around the land-use program. Projects that are more carefully thought out will lead to higher-value proposals from developers, he said.

In the past, Metro had put the burden on the developer to figure out, for example, the locations for parking, buses and the Kiss and Ride drop-off area.

"We would give them a very, very thick volume of requirements and tell them, 'You're responsible for giving something to us that works,' " Bottigheimer said, noting that his staff has begun more planning upfront.

Politics in Prince George's County, under County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), also has contributed to setbacks, said former Metro board member Robert Smith, an appointee of then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R).

"We really tried to develop those stations, but we just constantly ran into flak from the [Johnson] administration if it wasn't what they wanted and it wasn't the people they wanted," said Smith, an architect. Metro would come up with a proposal to develop a site, have "its ducks in line, but if Johnson didn't want it, they would tell us, 'You can go ahead and approve it, but we won't issue the building permits,' " Smith said. "It became ludicrous."

Jim Keary, a spokesman for Johnson, disputed Smith's characterization. "If you look at the quality of the development and the different developers that are involved, his statement is unfounded and distasteful," Keary said. He said Johnson has held forums to attract interest from developers and cited projects under construction at the Morgan Boulevard, Addison Road-Seat Pleasant and Prince George's Plaza stations.