The Silver Spring Regional Center meeting room was packed with community residents and groups; several listening in from outside the doorway. What was suppose to be a discussion focused on the public use space for the planned Falkland Chase development, led to a wide range of questions bombarding the Co-Chairman and Founder of Home Properties, Nelson Leenhouts along with Donald Hague, Vice President of Development.

The 1,020 unit apartment and retail project would be built on the on the Northern section of the historic Falkland Chase site. Lending his ear to the public before going into the details with planning staff, the meeting is the 3rd held by the developer for the project with more to come.

Several recognizable community members showed up to the meeting from Jerry McCoy of the Silver Spring Historical Society to Bruce Lee, President of Lee Development group and owner of the Lee building at the northern corner Georgia and Colesville.

Several Falkland chase residents showed up to the meeting as well. One concerned resident pleaded for rental rates to take into consideration lower income residents. Many of the current units are under a special tax program that keeps rental rates lower than the market prices.

Wayne Goldstein of Montgomery Preservation, Inc took issue with the location of the affordable housing. The developer would put the affordable housing in the existing south core, which would be set aside as historic and left untouched. There would be little to no affordable rate homes in the new development because of the economics according to the developer. $13,000 would go towards rehabilitaing the exterior of each building in the southern section, a figure could not be provided for the interiors.

The Silver Spring Historical Society proclaimed the entire site should be saved, they argued that the homes are deemed historic and should be preserved as is. They also noted that an underground stream and unique topography of the land would be destroyed with the new development.

Several members (and yours truly) brought a proposition to developer and listeners. The idea is to shift the greater density and height towards metro station, allowing the development to rise above the maximum 143′ feet and perhaps consolidate the building into 2-3 high-rises instead of the sprawling four building plan. This would allow for some the existing land to be preserved and for more open space. The developer answered that he tried this route but got a definite ‘NO’ from park in planning, in part due to opposition from the community when high-rises are built. Considering that Silver Spring is the second largest urban area in the state and if community member want to save some of the historic structures, this would be a reasonable compromise. Park and planning along with county council couldn’t say no to this idea if it meant saving some of the structures but community support would be needed. Another issue brought up was the monolithic and suburban nature of the development attendees suggested breaking up the buildings for a more urban character.

Alan Bowser, President of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board noted the fact that little discussion was dedicated to the public use space. With this in mind the developer plans to hold another meeting to discuss this specific issue, leading to a site plan redesign.

Considering the enormous size of the project, don’t expect the shovel to hit the dirt anytime soon. Ground breaking for the project is expected to take place within 2 years. The developer is still waiting to be assigned a planning staff reviewer.