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SECTION I: BLUEPRINT FOR TOMORROW
Introduction
The 2022 Staff Draft West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector Plan provides a long-term vision and goals, supported by focused policies and strategies, to guide the evolution of the West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector Plan Area through 2048. Residents, workers, students, property owners, and other community stakeholders including the City of Hyattsville, the City of Mount Rainier, and the Town of Brentwood, collaborated with the Prince George’s County Planning Department and other public agencies over a 20month period to develop the plan’s recommendations.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, outreach was conducted in an online environment. Methods of outreach included regular virtual engagement opportunities and updates of bilingual and accessible project materials communicated via the project websites, social media, and e-newsletters. WHAT’S IN A NAME?
This sector plan area covers portions of three municipalities, multiple neighborhoods, and unincorporated areas of Prince George’s County. The purpose of this plan is not to rename a community. The name comes from two key locational identifiers for the area: the West Hyattsville Metro Station and MD 500 (Queens Chapel Road). “West Hyattsville” is important because this Metro station is identified as a Local Transit Center in Plan 2035, and the basis around which this transit-oriented development plan is focused. “Queens Chapel” is important because it is the major roadway running through all the municipalities and unincorporated areas in the sector plan area and it connects this community to the region.
SECTOR PLAN
Sector plans build on goals, policies, and strategies of Plan Prince George’s 2035 (Plan 2035), Prince George’s County’s General Plan for growth and preservation, which recommends Prince George’s Plaza as a Regional Transit District and West Hyattsville as Local Transit Center. To help implement Plan 2035, sector plans study and test more detailed and refined development scenarios at the local level, incorporating such factors as community input, demographic trends, population forecasts, and market analyses. Once this sector plan is approved, it may amend the land use and other policy area designations set out in Plan 2035.
Map 1. West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector Plan Boundary
Source: Prince George’s County Planning Department, GIS Open Data Portal, 2021, https://gisdata.pgplanning.org/opendata/. Full data citation available in [HYPERLINK TO ONLINE APPENDIX PENDING].
Centered around the West Hyattsville Metro Station, West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel is a vibrant, resilient, and culturally and socioeconomically diverse community that embraces the Northwest Branch Stream
Valley Park and serves as a gateway to Prince George’s County. Here, equity and resiliency are championed by the community and guide decision-making. Neighborhoods are rich with housing options for a range of income levels and interwoven with natural spaces and parkland. Natural resources and open spaces are healthy, serve an ecological function, and are programmed for a variety of recreation opportunities that promote wellness. Streets and shared-use paths are accessible, comfortable, and safe for all people and all modes of travel. Local businesses are the
heartbeat of this community with attractive, lively, and thriving commercial areas and streetscapes that support an entrepreneurial atmosphere and encourage social interactions. In 2048, West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel is a transit-oriented community where the public realm and mixed-use areas work together to serve as community hubs where people can easily transition between living, working, and playing.
Themes
The West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector Plan aligns with Plan 2035’s three guiding themes—Work, Live, and Sustain—underscoring the importance of weighing economic, social, and environmental decisions when creating land use policy.
• Provides a wide range of opportunities within a short bicycle or transit ride. • Allows small, neighborhood, and minority-owned businesses opportunities to thrive by serving a diverse market with unique goods and services.
• Offers a range of housing types, sizes, and price points that allows people to grow up, have families, and age-in-place in the same community. • Has numerous opportunities for recreation and access to health care and healthy foods, and allows people to walk to amenities, shopping, and transit.
• Directing growth to the Metro stations and to areas served by a robust bicycle and pedestrian network, reducing emissions and other negative impacts of single-occupant auto travel. • Creating and expanding natural areas to capitalize on the ecological richness of the Northwest
Branch Stream Valley. • Concentrating development in designated Centers, reducing the demand for housing in the eastern part of the County that is unserved by transit.
Key Policies by Element
LAND USE
• Create a vibrant, sustainable community surrounding the West Hyattsville Metro Station that includes a variety of land uses.
• Preserve critical natural and environmentally sensitive features of the sector plan area to the maximum extent practicable.
• Maximize the potential for transitoriented development within walking distance of the West Hyattsville Metro Station.
ECONOMIC PROSPERITY
• Promote local entrepreneurship and small, local, and minority-owned business development.
• Create attractive commercial corridors to serve residents and visitors.
TRANSPORTATION AND MOBILITY
• Prioritize the movement of people rather than vehicles by incorporating active transportation safety features, attractive streetscaping, and, where feasible, stormwater management best practices into all streets throughout the sector plan area to improve multimodal travel.
• Increase connectivity and reliance on non-vehicular modes of travel by comprehensively connecting trail and shared-use path networks with onstreet pedestrian and bicycle facilities.
• Support the County’s efforts to achieve Vision Zero Prince George’s, a Countywide interdisciplinary approach to eliminate all traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries. NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
• Reduce flood risk within, and downstream of, the sector plan area.
• Preserve and expand tree canopy to create a comfortable and attractive environment for people, provide additional wildlife habitat, and reduce urban heat island effects.
HOUSING AND NEIGHBORHOODS
• Implement Housing Opportunities for
All by increasing the quantity, diversity, and affordability of the housing supply throughout the sector plan area.
COMMUNITY HERITAGE, CULTURE, AND DESIGN
• Establish community branding and bilingual wayfinding that highlights and celebrates the cultural diversity, history, and nature of the sector plan area and creates a character-defining place.
• Encourage art in public and private spaces to create a sense of place and identity.
HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
• Create a built environment that allows for safe walking and biking to multiple destinations, amenities, and other non-automobile transportation options.
• Preserve existing senior housing and assisted living facilities while expanding resource offerings to allow residents to age in place.
PUBLIC FACILITIES
• Create a vibrant, transit-oriented development that facilitates outdoor enjoyment, public gathering, and healthy lifestyles and preserves environmental assets.
