After mediation, Clarksburg will finally get a town center

Newland Communities LLC has agreed to build a traditional town center in its Clarksburg Town Center development in Montgomery County, Maryland, as part of a settlement that apparently ends a long-running controversy over whether the developer reneged on promises to residents and to the county.
Residents of the 1,200-unit development became disgruntled more than a year ago when San Diego-based Newland announced plans to build a strip shopping center rather than the Main Street-style center that had originally been promised. The residents — through their Clarksburg Town Center Advisory Committee — devoted hundreds of hours to combing through Clarksburg planning and development records. They found documentation for their charge that amenities promised by the developer were missing and that hundreds of homes had been built too tall and too close to the street — deviating from county-approved plans.
The discrepancies between what the developer was entitled to build and what was constructed ignited a controversy not only about Clarksburg but about whether the county planning department has been doing its job properly elsewhere. Accusations springing from the 270-acre Clarksburg project led to the resignation of two top county planning officials.
After the dispute had dragged on for months, residents agreed to mediation with Newland and the builders, but on the condition that Mike Watkins — long associated with Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. and its planning of Kentlands in Montgomery County — be hired to advise them. Watkins’ hiring led Newland to hire, as its own adviser, John Torti, principal in Torti, Gallas & Partners, a new urbanist firm based in Montgomery County.
Rather than battling each other, Watkins and Torti collaborated on how to address Clarksburg’s flaws. The two architects “agreed that we would work side-by-side essentially for both clients and produce a single master plan [set of documents and recommendations] rather than ‘our’ plan and ‘their’ plan,” Watkins told New Urban News. “Our shared commitment to The Charter made this easy. Together John and I conducted a charrette in January which was followed by a lot of discussion and drawing that led to the plan supported [in April] by all parties.”
The most dramatic changes resulting from the mediation involve Clarksburg’s two neighborhood centers. Instead of a conventional shopping center, Clarksburg will get what Watkins describes as “a compact, mixed-use, mixed residential type downtown with mid-block structured parking.” Clarksburg will also obtain what Watkins says is a redesigned and expanded “civic/community center.” Numerous smaller issues were also resolved.
Newland Communities had seemed unfamiliar with how to develop a new urbanist community. A visit to the half-built project revealed, Watkins said, problems such as the developer selling lots across streets and squares from one another to various builders, “with no one giving a thought to what the space would be like between them … The pieces were not adding up to community — they were just pieces.”
Newland Communities’ alleged violations of agreements with the county “gave the residents the leverage they needed to not only have these issues addressed but to address the larger issues of building a ‘community’ as well,” Watkins observed. The Washington Post reported that because of the mediated settlement, there will be a pedestrian-scale retail center with housing above for store operators. Newland will create space where restaurants can open onto a town square, redesign some of the housing, add recreational facilities and open space, and  construct two parking garages that will be largely hidden by townhouses. Moderately-priced housing units will be distributed throughout the development rather than concentrated. Altogether, the changes are expected to cost millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the county lured former Gaithersburg, Maryland, planning director Jennifer Russel out of retirement and appointed her Clarksburg ombudsman, a job in which she will work with residents and others. As planning director, Russel helped ensure that Kentlands stayed true to its traditional plan after the development was taken by a bank. At Clarksburg, she sees her role as safeguarding a plan that holds similar potential.