Mayor Davis started the meeting at 8:08 p.m. It was held in the Senior Classroom of the Community Center.

PRESENT WERE: Council members Rodney M. Roberts, Alan Turnbull, Thomas X. White, and Mayor Judith F. Davis.

STAFF PRESENT WERE: Michael P. McLaughlin, City Manager; and Kathleen Gallagher, City Clerk.

ALSO PRESENT WERE: Steve Hawtof, Joe Harrison, and Wendy Wolcott, State Highway Administration; Sheldon Goldberg, Advisory Planning Board; Amy Boyes, the Gazette; Virginia Beauchamp, the Greenbelt News Review.

Mayor Davis started the meeting by saying its purpose was to receive a presentation on the four preliminary alternatives that would be described at a public workshop to be held by the State Highway Administration (SHA) on Wednesday, June 26, at Springhill Lake Elementary School. It was clarified that the workshop would mark the end of the SHA’s planning study, but the focus group on the interchange, of which the Mayor is a member, would continue beyond the public workshop. Mayor Davis also stated that it was already known to SHA that the City has been opposed to a new Beltway interchange, primarily because of its environmental impacts and because of the level of government support for access to a private development.

Ms. Wolcott said SHA is aware that one of their alternatives does not jibe with the developer’s site plan. She said the developer is revising the site plan, which had been considered to be "very preliminary" anyway. Mayor Davis responded that this information was new to Council but not surprising, since the developer’s plans have been a continually changing target.

The SHA’s booklet for the public workshop identified the proposed Greenbelt Station project as "Transit Oriented Development." Mr. White objected to this characterization and asked how state resources could support it as such. Ms. Wolcott said the developer had been put on notice to address this subject. Mayor Davis noted that this issue had been raised within the focus group as well, but she added that not all agencies share Greenbelt’s definition of "transit-oriented."

Mr. Harrison commented that, as project planners, he, Mr. Hawtof and Ms. Wolcott have a rather narrowly defined scope and cannot address all the broad issues. Ms. Wolcott added that WMATA, the developer, and the county would all have information stations at the public workshop, so that more bases could be covered in terms of questions and concerns.

Mr. Roberts asked about the funding mechanism. Ms. Wolcott responded that only Phase 1, the planning study, had been funded so far. It was later determined that the cost of this phase had been estimated at about $1 million. In response to a further question from Mr. Roberts on state funding for the project, as well as a subsequent question from Mr. White on how the City might best focus its objections, Ms. Wolcott and Mr. Hawtof both stressed that this project was not being undertaken at the state’s initiative; rather, the state was simply responding to the high priority the project had been given by the county. Mr. Hawtof added that SHA had not received much objection to the project from the environmental agencies.

Mr. Hawtof then presented the four preliminary alternatives (one "no build" and three plans), as well as four other alternatives that SHA had already rejected. Mr. White said he was surprised that adding another Beltway interchange in this location met safety criteria. Mr. Hawtof responded that it was for that reason, having to do with numbers of points of access, that some of the alternatives had been rejected.

Ms. Wolcott described a study being undertaken by the SHA on the Indian Creek watershed and said results of this would be available from Lorraine Strowe in the Baltimore office and would presumably be shared with the focus group. There was subsequent discussion of the damage that had been done to the Creek and the watershed and Council’s concern that any required mitigation should be done in the same watershed.

Mayor Davis thanked the SHA representatives for coming. Ms. Wolcott said she would send figures requested by Mr. Roberts on traffic capacity to Mr. McLaughlin.

Other Business

Mayor Davis reported that CB30/31/32-2002 had been deferred, with strong opposition from the Sierra Club and other groups. She also asked for any suggestions regarding a meeting she and the Mayors of Bowie and College Park would have June 26 at the MML convention with Adrian Gardner and Fern Piret of M-NCPPC. Mr. White said he would like to stress taking maximum advantage of the summer study on planning and zoning authority. He also suggested that Mayor Davis try to elicit from M-NCPPC what the next incremental stages would be for the City to continue to make progress in this area. Mr. McLaughlin suggested that the Mayor also try to determine what their perception is of the obstacles that need to be overcome.

The meeting ended at 9:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Gallagher
City Clerk

City of Greenbelt, Maryland
City Offices, 25 Crescent Road, Greenbelt, MD 20770
Phone: 301-474-8000 FAX: 301-441-8248