Downtown Clarksburg Wrangling Continues

Plans for Parking And Design at Issue

It has been more than two years since the developer of Clarksburg Town Center and a residents group sat down with a mediator to try to find a way to build a walkable downtown for the northern Montgomery County development. But, after a recent planning meeting, it appears the endgame is far from over.

The Montgomery County Planning Board, which had agreed to drop millions of dollars in fines against Newland Communities in exchange for the company's agreement to create a more pedestrian-friendly town center, sent the developer back to the drawing board.

In doing so, the board agreed with its staff that Newland Communities has strayed from the terms of the deal it made with the planning agency to redesign the community. The redesign was to be in exchange for the board's commitment to dropping complaints that the company had broken county law with buildings too tall and too near the road.

Newland officials say the problem they face is the proposed design. They told the board it has run into resistance in the market.

They said they were unable to find a grocery store willing to come to the town center. Food retailers, the developer said, do not like the plans for two multi-level garages and some elements of the proposed downtown design.

Newland instead wants to build one garage and provide ground-level surface parking. Some residents say the result would be simply the old strip shopping center repackaged as something new.

Newland wants to provide smaller stores of about 50 feet in depth near a proposed grocery store. The company said it is in talks with Harris Teeter, which uses garage parking at sites in Northern Virginia and Rockville.

"Our default position is two garages and the 60-foot-deep stores," Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson said the morning after the marathon meeting, which began about 9:30 a.m. Nov. 6 and ran past midnight.

"What we need to see is if there is a good reason to change that," he said.

Hanson asked that Newland and community activists who had challenged the design provide memos this month that outline how best to design the northern Montgomery community's retail core.

Kim Shiley, a Clarksburg Town Center Advisory Committee member, said the board was asking for information it has. The committee has been on the case since it began more than four years ago with findings that Newland and its builders had not followed the approved plans.

Shiley cited documents from Newland's experts that showed that the area needed about 1,000 parking spaces, far more than the number Newland wants to provide. She said the experts suggested that amount of parking is necessary to ensure that the retail center is successful and parking does not spill over into residential neighborhoods.