Cars and Progress Passing Burtonsville By

Roylene Roberts, chief of neighborhood revitalization for the Department of Housing and Community Affairs, said the county is about to hire a consultant to conduct a $60,000 study of ways to improve Burtonsville. The kinds of projects that could be built with the $500,000, she said, include a streetscape design that gives communities a sense of place.

The consultant will have two meetings May 29 to solicit ideas regarding the Burtonsville redevelopment study, at noon with the business community and at 7 p.m. with residents. Both will be at the East County Regional Services Center, 3300 Briggs Chaney Rd., in Silver Spring.

"When you go to Georgetown, the sidewalks are different, the lights are different, the benches are different," Roberts said. "You know you're in Georgetown."

Indeed, it's the lack of a community "soul" that some Burtonsville residents say troubles them most. They say their once-rural crossroads community at Montgomery's northeastern edge has grown into another chunk of suburbia without a "village" feel. The closest they've come to a town square, they say, are the picnic tables outside the Amish market, but those will disappear when that shopping center is torn down and replaced this year.

Although some residents say they were drawn to Burtonsville's convenient location and country feel, the fact that it is bisected by two busy roads leaves them stuck in their cars even for short distances, when they'd prefer a walkable town.

Chris Jones, president of Bethesda-based BMC Property Group, is redeveloping the Burtonsville Shopping Center where the Amish market operates. He said Burtonsville, situated between Washington and Baltimore and on the borders of Howard and Prince George's counties, is a prime business location. Its residents, like many in Montgomery, are well-educated and relatively affluent, he said.

However, Jones said, the area became so choked with traffic that officials limited new development there for years. Redevelopment gets expensive, he said, because the county often requires developers to improve roads and follow time-consuming regulations. Meanwhile, he said, an inflexible master plan doesn't allow for the kind of mixed-use retail and residential development that some residents are calling for.

The area also doesn't have the kind of population density or transit systems that make redevelopment projects profitable, he said. Without tax breaks or other government incentives, he said, many developers won't venture to the area.

Jones said his new shopping center will be "very nice" but won't have the "Main Street" feel he'd envisioned because he couldn't persuade public officials to grant him more commercial zoning.

"Development can happen in Burtonsville, but government has to encourage it," Jones said. "They have to say this is something we want. There's been no will to do that."

Piera Weiss, who oversees planning issues for the Burtonsville area, said eastern Montgomery's master plans were last updated in 1997. Mixed-use residential-retail developments weren't considered because they weren't common then, and they weren't an issue that residents or developers raised, Weiss said. The county also usually targets such high-density developments around Metro stops, which Burtonsville doesn't have.

As for public funding, Weiss said, "The county has to know what it wants to do before it gives the tax breaks to do it."

Others said local businesses and landlords should do more.

Lynn Martins, owner of Seibel's, a popular Burtonsville restaurant since 1939, said more property owners need to spruce up, as she's done with a garden and fish pond.

"We as business owners have a stake in how our community looks," Martins said. "I think we have some responsibility as well. We can't pass it all off on government."