First, for necessary background information, please be sure to have read Recap of Jan 11, 2005 Community Meeting

Although this was a regularly scheduled MH HoA Board meeting, the entire meeting was dedicated to a presentation by Berman Enterprises and questions/answers with about 30 residents who attended.

BERMAN PRESENTATION:
Berman legal counsel, Andre Gingles and Berman Enterprises partners, Brian, Kevin and Jeff Berman, again provided "initial conceptual" drawings based on some early engineering and architectural work, showing what their two proposed options (all Town House and all Multi-Family) might look like on the undeveloped parcels of land in Montpelier Hills, and some pictures by way of example of what kinds of Town Houses or Mid-rise units are representative of their plans, pending community input. [see latest pictures enclosed with February 3, 2005  MH HOA Letter at http://www.geocities.com/garolds/mh/dev/index.htm ] 

Bermans made these points in their presentation. They began by acknowledging that most Montpelier Hills homeowners, would probably prefer that no construction take place at all. In particular, many people had grown very accustomed to the woodlots in the community. P.G. county approved a comprehensive design plan for Montpelier Hills (MH CDP) 17 years ago, which included 243 town homes and approval to ultimately construct up to a total of 1000 units overall, including mid-rise or high-rise multi-family units on specified parcels of land in Montpelier Hills [see the "Multi-Family" diagram above], which until now have remained undeveloped. There are currently 365 town homes in Montpelier hills HoA, some of which were not part of the original MH CDP, but are part of the MH HoA.  According to county code, Multi-family units include "2 over 2", Mid-Rise, and Hi-Rise units [see "Examples" pictures above]. One possible design not shown in those pictures is a "Donut" mid-rise, where there is a parking structure within and at the back of a hollow rectangular shaped building [as I understood what they said]. A Donut-style unit is proposed at 4th Street and Cherry Lane in Laurel. Some of the infrastructure for the additional homes was already built by the first developer (storm water management, sewer, etc.)  In 1996 the P.G. county council passed legislation limiting the number of town homes and mid/high-rise units that can be built in the county -- so in light of county legislation, the original MH CDP requires legal interpretation as to what can be built and ultimately the county council will need to review any proposal. At this time Bermans are proposing to build either 300 mid-rise units or 267 Town House units. They are seeking input from our community, coordinated through the HoA Board, first on which of their proposed options to proceed with (town house or mid-rise) and then in progressive stages of greater detail, accommodate progressively more detailed community input in developing a specific design plan (SDP) for county approval prior to beginning construction. The current conceptual diagrams do not yet incorporate community input which is now being solicited on aspects such as set-backs, open space, green space, tree buffers, etc. Bermans said that, in their view, mixing Town Houses and Mid-rises on these parcels would not yield a good mix of density and open/green space. Bermans said that the MH CDP requires a total of 60% green space across all MH CDP parcels and some of that green space already exists on the other parcels already developed within the MH CDP [including the Recreation Association properties] [so the new parcels themselves may have somewhat less than 60% green space within them]. The Town House proposal for these parcels is a change to the original MH CDP, which will require county council approval.

DISCUSSION:
Residents raised many points, most of which are summarized here in Q&A format, though that is not exactly how the discussion flowed. For each question, initial answers were given by the Bermans, as the Bermans still remain open to further input from us. I regret if I failed to capture any of that discussion here.

Q. Is the amount of open/green space and tree buffers, etc still on the table [even if not yet shown on the proposal diagrams]?
A. Yes. Everything is still on the table, and not just open/green space, etc..

Q. How many people will occupy each type of unit on average (Town House or Mid-Rise]
A. The county planning board has such figures. Bermans will get an answer for us.

Q. How many rental units are there in Montpelier Hills today?
A. MH Management Agent David Vaughn answered that in the past as many as 10% of Montpelier Hills homes were rentals (based on the number of lot owners living outside Montpelier Hills, so some of those may not have been rentals or leases). Recently, there are fewer rental units, presumably because of the improved home sales market.

Q. Can we choose to not have rental units?
A. The county can not impose whether the units are to be owned or rented or leased, etc. but the developer can choose, and community input on this is solicited. MH HoA legal counsel, Susan Gray, commented that we could negotiate this with the Bermans as a private covenant for those properties.

Q. What is the process by which the community will provide input and come to a consensus position and how will it be negotiated with the Bermans?

A. MH HoA President Brian gave a recap of the history of community engagement with the Bermans. It started when the Bermans contacted Brian in October and he invited them to the regularly scheduled October MH HoA Board meeting, which happened to be the very next evening. Bermans told the Board and attending residents of their intention to build-out the remaining land parcels in the MH CDP. Bermans were asked to come to the next regularly scheduled MH HoA board meeting in November, where they said, that at that time they were thinking about building Mid-Rise units according to the original MH CDP, but they asked if the community would prefer Town Homes or Mid-Rises. The Board invited them to give a more detailed presentation in January [after the holidays when more people could come], which they did at a special community meeting on January 11 at Capital College announced by yellow postcard to all MH homeowners. At that meeting Bermans offered to give a more detailed presentation at the regularly scheduled MH HoA Board meeting on January 18. Brian said that in addition to questions and comments from residents at the January 11 and 18 meetings, those homeowners with interest and time (about two 3-hour meetings a week, plus homework) are invited to form a working group to consolidate all resident input from discussions of this on the MH INTERACT email list or sent in writing to the MH management agent David Vaughn, c/o Bader Management, Inc., 14435 Cherry Lane Suite 210,  Laurel, MD 20707 or by fax 301 953-1912. All work products of that working group will be shared with the community in a timely way. In consultation with the working group, the Board will determine a process for presenting choices to the community based on consolidated community input, at each stage of this process of negotiating with the Bermans. There was a discussion about alternative structures for the working group -- Brian said we should start out with one working group and see where we needed to go from there. The working group will ensure that homeowner input is captured, especially localized concerns relating to particular streets, etc.  Board member Karen Thomas commented that the goal is a development that we don't mind waking up to, even if it isn't everything that each of us might want.

Q. What will be the size of the Town House or Mid-Rise units: foot print and living space?
A. Bermans said they will be at least as large as specified in the MH CDP (i.e., built in Montpelier Hills), maybe larger based on market demand.  MH legal counsel Susan Gray offered to provide key information about those requirements and others in the MH CDP and related county code, to the Board and working group to put in useable form for dissemination to the community.

Q. One resident suggested swapping one of the developed open space land parcels, for part of the undeveloped land.
A. That suggestion will be looked into by the working group.

Q. How many new students for Montpelier Elementary School would come out of each new unit? Is there a difference between town house and mid-rise units?

A. Bermans will provide the county planning board's figures for that.

Q. What is the minimum number of units of each kind that the Bermans are willing to build?
A. In lively discussion with persistent questioning by residents, Bermans answered that they can not calculate, even for their own internal purposes, a minimum number of units of each type that would be feasible for them to build on these parcels, because that depends on many factors not yet determined, including community input on open space, green space, buffer zones, set-backs, as well as amenities, and up-dated county requirements later at the Specific Design Plan stage, etc. They promised to continue to provide increasing detail about their planning as they receive community input. When they get to the Specific Design Plan stage there will be much more detail in the drawings (30:1 scale) and much more detail in supporting documentation about unit design, applicable county standards, etc.

Q. Are all the undeveloped parcels in the MH CDP still developable? When is that determined by the County?
A. Environmental assessments accomplished for the original 17-year old MH CDP will be revised by the Bermans and reviewed in greater detail by the County Planning Board during the Preliminary Plan stage that precede creation of a Specific Design Plan. 

MH President Brian Sutton said that any poll taken that night would of course be non-binding, but it would be useful to get a sense of what those attending think so far. He asked how many people at the meeting preferred Town Houses at this point (most), how many preferred mid-rises (none), how many felt there wasn't enough information to have a preference yet (a few). A few who had expressed a preference said that they still needed more information.