ezStorage Preliminary Plan Hearing Results

“…if the people had applied the law, we would not be looking at the historic significance of this very area.  The law is the law. But what we know about this area is that people chose to look and say ‘no, this law [slavery] is wrong’.”  Commissioner Jean Cryor, January 8, 2009

The ezStorage Preliminary Plan hearing was held before the Planning Board on January 8.  The purpose of the hearing was to determine if the current ezStorage Preliminary Plan is consistent with the zoning laws for Sandy Spring.  The Site Plan process (which follows the Preliminary Plan approval) determines the compatibility of the then current plan to the Sandy Spring/Ashton Master Plan and the Rural Village Overlay Zone.

The final vote on the Preliminary Plan was three to two in support of the staff recommendation for approval.  The vote indicates only that the law says that a storage facility can be built in the designated area.  The vote is based on the zoning laws, not the important discussions that occurred during the deliberations.  Sound recordings of the five parts of the hearing are available.

The community, both Sandy Spring and Ashton, came forward with many reasons to oppose the Preliminary Plan.  There are 35 letters in opposition on our web site (the County may have received more), with no letters received by us in favor of the development.  There were 21 people in the community who gave testimony opposing the proposal and none in favor.   Some represented groups, such as SSARPC, the Sandy Spring Civic Association, the Auburn Village Home Owners Association and the Bentley Road Civic Association.  As written testimony is collected it will be added to our web site.  If you have testimony to submit, please send it to feedback@ssarpc.org.

Miche Booz, Architect and Painter, said you “… can’t have a village without an edge, reduced density and forestation, a green edge…   [the current] procession of increasing density into the town, sets a good rhythm of residential construction and development. …   The Rural Legacy Trail is part of this area, and it is meant to be the place where people experience the Underground Railroad.  The gateway site is not just for cars but for tourists as well.  And the first thing that tourists would see is the rear part of the building. …    It will destroy the entrance to Sandy Spring.”

As the Planning Board commissioners’ comments show, they listened carefully to the testimony (see partial transcripts at the end of this article).  For example, Commissioner Cryor said “Everyone sitting at this table and in this room knows that this is inappropriate and wrong for this particular area.”   Chairman Hanson had a very difficult time breaking the tie and voting for passage of the Preliminary Plan: “I think that this is just an awful proposal…. I am going to vote for the motion.  I do it with the most extraordinary reluctance.  I do it because I think that it is necessary, in this case, to separate the approval of the subdivision and the use from the standards of development that will apply at site plan.”

The comments by the applicant’s lawyer, C. Robert Dalrymple, Partner, Linowes and Blocher LLP, were:  “While I don’t agree with the testimony we just heard, I do respect the civil nature in which it was given and its obvious passionate testimony and I think that the community has done an admirable job of stating their position. … In all due respect, all of the testimony you have heard today is not relevant to your consideration to the matter and all we asking you to do is to apply the law.”  Sound recordings of the applicant’s initial presentation and the applicant’s rebuttal of the citizen testimonies are available here.

The following is a transcript of some of the comments made by the commissioners during the deliberations.  A sound recording of the entire commissioner’s deliberations 22 minutes) is available here.

Commissioner John Robinson:

“…the Preliminary Plan, all we are doing is approving the use.  … Scale is a matter for the site plan.” 

“If I were here for the site plan came in, based on what I have seen so far, you wouldn’t have a chance.  You wouldn’t have a chance for three reasons.  First of all it’s not pedestrian oriented, it doesn’t provide windows in the site of architectural design that we were concerned about when we did the Ashton Meeting Place project, and it’s way too massive. …  If I vote yes on the use, I want the community to understand clearly from my point of view I am voting only on the use. … I consider the design and the scale to be unacceptable.”

Commissioner Joe Alfandre:

Sandy Spring and Ashton is holding on by a thread …  It’s getting chewed up bite by bite … this was a heartache for me 20 years ago … and it’s a heartache for me again today, because we haven’t done much to solve the underlying problem  …  it’s all of our faults … partly a fault of plans that are not specific enough and expectations that may come with those plans, … continuing fault of developers and their lack of outreach, which creates a threat to the community and a lack of trust, which is what you demonstrated today.  ….The original landowners in Ashton/Sandy Spring that kinda got out of line, which is the truth.  More collaboration - that is what we should do. …   C2 [zoning] is C2 … and it is a dull dull weapon that we have……”

“I certainly don’t want to vote in favor of a Preliminary Plan with a building mass on it, if we have to do that and are stuck with that scale of building, I can’t vote for that. ...”

“So we are not tied to the mass, the size of that building.  I am going to be here at site plan. … I don’t know what we can do yet but it certainly isn’t going to be to approve this.”

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