Nostalgia May Trump New Housing in Montgomery

Residents tend to like the place. "It's lush, it's green -- it would be a crime to tear it down," says Jane Bergwin-Rand, who briefly lived in the complex in the 1970s and moved back in two years ago. "I have a little screened-in porch on the third floor and it's like having my own garden."

As sweet a spot as Falkland Chase may seem to some, change is inevitable. Maryland's proposed Purple line, envisioned to run from New Carrollton to Bethesda, would slice off a piece of Falkland, forcing at least two of its buildings to be torn down.

And the success of downtown Silver Spring's retail and office development means ever more people will want to live nearby. That's why a coalition of religious groups called Action in Montgomery negotiated a promise from the developer to set aside 282 units -- two-thirds of them in the proposed buildings and the rest at the company's other properties in the county -- for moderate-income families.

"The preservationists want to save Falkland as a monument to an old kind of affordable housing, but what we need is new affordable units," says Alisa Glassman, lead organizer of the group, which represents 32 congregations.

The developer, desperate to win the politicians' approval, has agreed not to oppose historic designation for the majority of the complex. But at some point, those garden apartments no longer make any economic sense. The county made its choice when it started redeveloping downtown Silver Spring. To cling to ordinary, 70-year-old brick apartments is an act of mere nostalgia.

"We all know we need the housing," Hague says. "If not here, where?"

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