After receiving their first look at a consulting group’s proposals and recommendations for revitalizing Prince Frederick earlier this week, the county commissioners expressed support for the ideas.
During the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners meeting Tuesday, the consulting firm that conducted the Prince Frederick Town Center Charrette, The Lawrence Group, presented its report from the charrette.
“It’s real different. It’s very, very different,” Commissioner Susan Shaw (R) said. “It’s long-range and a lot of what we’ve heard about up ’til now has been what’s marketable or what’s profitable now — right now, not maybe such a long-range view.”
The hourlong report closely mirrored The Lawrence Group’s final presentation from the charrette process back in June. The charrette was a weeklong public process conducted by The Lawrence Group with the help of county staff, resulting in the firm’s recommendations and proposals. During the charrette week, there were public workshops, topical discussions and meetings at the end of each day to present the firm’s information, drawings and concepts to the public and receive feedback.
Craig Lewis, managing principal and director of planning with The Lawrence Group, told the commissioners to envision Prince Frederick in 2049 — a time when there are about 6,500 residents and more than 5,000 high-quality jobs in the town.
Included in that vision are several mixed-use townhome and apartment neighborhoods; the shopping centers have been revamped to include high-quality tenants and mixed-use infill development; there is a public square in the Historic Courthouse District; the “Hospital District” has expanded across Route 2/4, which is crossable with streetscaping and medians; and pedestrians and bicyclists have up to 6 miles worth of trails and paths to get anywhere in the town.
Overall, The Lawrence Group’s design would increase the existing 1,689 acres in the town center by 529 net acres, resulting in a 2,228-acre town center. The increase includes added land north of Calvert Memorial Hospital and to the west of the town center to include the College of Southern Maryland Prince Frederick Campus. The southern portion of the town center is proposed to be excluded from the town center boundary as well.
The consulting firm also proposed three districts for the town center: the Hospital District, a Cultural District that would encompass Calvert High School and the proposed Armory Square, and the Civic District along Main Street. In addition to the districts, the firm proposed 10 activity centers, such as CSM, the Edward T. Hall Aquatic Center, Calvert Memorial Hospital, the Calvert Library Prince Frederick, Calvert Pines Senior Center and one at each of the public schools within the town center.
The housing density in Prince Frederick, which is currently permitted at a maximum of 10 or 12 units per acre, would be about three units per acre with all of the proposed housing in the town center.
Lewis said the consulting firm is recommending to decrease the parking standard because the actual parking standards are much less than a decade ago. The extra parking that exists today, he said, is already conducive to redevelopment of outparcels in the shopping centers — which could help create more mixed-use, “walkable” communities.
The county needs to prioritize the regulations, Lewis said during Tuesday’s presentation, beginning with streetscape, then frontage, building placement, parking location, height, roof type, building design and then, finally, use.
The design also includes 11 to 15 acres of public space and 10 to 25 acres of athletic fields. Of note are the eight outdoor spaces throughout the town for sporting events, gatherings, picnics and other special events, not including neighborhood parks and playgrounds. The consulting firm also added extensive streetscaping and plant infill throughout the town along roadways, Route 2/4 and in parking lots.
The consulting firm also made its own revisions to the Prince Frederick Loop Road, such as altering starting and ending points and changing where the road would lie because of the hilly topography for which the road is currently proposed.
The heart of Prince Frederick would be Armory Square, Lewis told the commissioners.
“The key things here are to create a great place,” Lewis said. “It’s going to be a different place than you have here around the courthouse because this is off the beaten path. … The key here is to think about this area as a mixed-use space.”
Armory Square would be a walkable, mixed-use village center, according to the design. The Lawrence Group presented four options for the square. Several included an area for a large retailer, while all had a range of retailing options with entertainment and restaurants. All options retained the Armory building but repurposed it for a community need, such as a community center, a black box theater, offices or a farmers market. All four options have a 1- to 1½-acre public space with extensive landscaping stretching into the entire square.
To make this area successful, though, Lewis said there needs to be housing, connectivity, circulation, jobs, a public space, things to go do and things to buy.
To implement all these changes throughout the town center, the consulting firm also made recommendations to the Prince Frederick Town Center Zoning Ordinance, such as reforming the transferrable development rights program to offer exemptions for development in the town center or for strip/big box retail or single-story development. In addition, the consulting firm recommends placing “walkable urbanism” as a goal for the town center.
Commissioner Gerald W. “Jerry” Clark (R) said, “This is actually very different than what we’ve seen before when we’ve looked at town center master plans’ updates, rewrites and things like that. It’s truly for the future. I would venture to say that a lot of the folks that participated in the charrettes and that were there basically are seeing this as a vision that may happen when they’re not here because 35 years is a fairly long period of time.”
Clark said he would like to see what public’s reaction will be when this begins to move to public meetings and hearings.
“It’s interesting. I’m curious to see going forward with this how it shakes down in public opinion,” he concluded.
“It’s almost a bit overwhelming to picture all this in a span of a short time, which is what most people want to see,” Commissioners’ President Pat Nutter (R) said.
Commissioner Evan Slaughenhoupt (R) was one of those people.
“To me, I’m very impatient. I want to see that today. But it’s not gonna happen today, I know,” he said.
Slaughenhoupt also warned and reminded everyone, “There will be naysayers. I’m not one of them, but there will be naysayers that complain that we’re doing something different to the TDR program. In reality, I think we’re going to work to try to help improve and save the TDR program and use such to help for incentives to achieve some of these visions. You’ll hear naysayers about traffic.”
In addition to traffic and TDR concerns, he said there will also be those who will say this is The Lawrence Group’s plan for Prince Frederick.
“We need to remind them that’s not the case, that this consultant is presenting a vision as articulated by citizens at these charrettes. This is the citizens’ concept to be modified over time, sure.”
Slaughenhoupt said he supports the concept for Prince Frederick.
“I like the activity centers. I like how you took, and currently a new district — I’ll call it the New Town District — and within that one district, you subdivided five districts. … And what I liked about that was those circles showed like a five-minute walk. I think that’s very keen, very helpful to help focus energy on this concept.”
According to Lewis’ presentation, the consulting firm is preparing a presentation book for the county that will include a summary of the charrette and all the recommendations.
Moving forward, Acting Director of the Calvert County Department of Community Planning and Building Mary Beth Cook said staff plans to have the proposed amendments to the Prince Frederick Zoning Ordinance before the end of the year followed by the first public hearings taking place in the first quarter of 2014.
Speak Your Mind