By Lisa Rein and Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Metro's 86 rail stations sit on some of the Washington region's most valuable real estate. But the transit agency has failed to encourage developers to build homes, offices and stores at the trains' doorsteps, projects that might coax more commuters from their cars and provide the system with needed cash.
That's the assessment of a scathing report by a panel of experts Metro appointed in the hope of revamping its widely criticized land-use program.
The report blames Metro's hands-off approach for a "paucity" of interest from developers, confusion in communities near stations because of "interminable reviews often at odds with community concerns," and "frequent disconnect" with local governments. It calls Metro's process broken.
Years ago, jobs and aggressive local governments propelled construction of towers at stations in downtown Washington, as well as in Montgomery and Arlington counties and Alexandria. But the report contends Metro's bureaucracy has been largely absent and sometimes obstructionist in planning development at dozens of other sites, particularly in Prince George's County and at D.C. stations east of the Anacostia River.
So as the real estate market sizzled in the past decade, many developers steered clear of investing at Metro stations -- often in traffic-choked areas where new urban neighborhoods might attract residents, the report and panel members said.
"Metro has been totally ineffective and counterproductive to any decent development at Metro stations," said Gus Bauman, a former chairman of the regional land-use and parks authority for Montgomery and Prince George's counties, who led the task force.
"This is the national capital region of the free world. If you put up a sign and said, 'Hey, we're the government. We're opening the door for proposals for development,' you would think you'd get 10 or 20 proposals." Instead, in recent years, the average was 2.1 per station, the report says.
The analysis of Metro's "joint development" program was commissioned last year by then-interim general manager Dan Tangherlini in part because of complaints from Maryland officials. It is set to go before the board of directors this fall.
A copy of the report -- by a task force that included citizen activists, developers and professional planners -- was obtained by The Washington Post.
About a quarter of the stations have property available for development, including six acres at Capitol Heights on the Blue Line and more than 35 acres at New Carrollton on the Orange Line.
Many of the undeveloped stations lie east of the Anacostia River: Cheverly, Landover and New Carrollton on the Orange Line and Naylor Road, Anacostia, Congress Heights, Branch Avenue and Southern Avenue on the Green Line. A few are in Virginia, including Van Dorn Street on the edge of Alexandria and East Falls Church.
It is the lack of progress at Prince George's stations that infuriates Maryland state transportation officials. "The communities that could benefit the most are the ones that have gotten nothing," said Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari. "It has not been a clear priority. It's unacceptable."
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.
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