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PICKUP ‘LINE’ Olney Theatre Center energized by massive musical production. A-11
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Wednesday, July 31, 2013
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Premium outlet plan moves on to nuts and bolts Lawyers for competing proposal object to increase in center’s retail space n
BY
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
PHOTOS BY DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
Above, Diane Cameron (left), conservation director for the Audubon Naturalist Society, speaks at a rally to save Ten Mile Creek held in front of the Montgomery County Planning Board offices on Thursday. Below, Rita LaPorta of Germantown speaks out at the rally.
The competition between proposed fashion outlet complexes straddling Interstate 270 in Clarksburg shifted from public relations campaigns and planning board hearings to a quasi-judicial hearing room in Rockville on Monday. County Hearing Examiner Lynn Robeson began her review of a plan by Streetscape Partners, which wants to build a mixed-use center with Premium
fashion outlet stores on the west side of Interstate 270 in the developing Cabin Branch area. The hearing examiner’s role is to decide if the development plan conforms to the Clarksburg Master Plan, which provides development guidelines. The Planning Board — which makes recommendations to the County Council — approved the Streetscape development plan on July 18, agreeing to its request to increase retail space from 120,000 square feet to a maximum of 484,000 square feet to make room for stores instead of offices. Robeson continued Mon-
See PLAN, Page A-7
Board digs into Clarksburg growth After nine years, Public hearing set for Sept. 10
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Developer objects to downsizing project. n Page A-4
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
The land debate in Clarksburg is heating up as members of the county Planning Board on Thursday delved ever deeper into the question of how much new development to recommend in Clarksburg and Boyds, including a plan by Pulte Homes to build 1,000 houses. The five-member board is wrestling with how to balance developers’ proposals for more housing, stores and services with plans to better protect the Ten Mile Creek watershed. The watershed drains from central Clarksburg southwest across fields and woods in Boyds into Little Seneca Lake, a backup drinking water reservoir for the Washington, D.C.,
region. On Thursday, the board accepted planners’ draft recommendations that will be debated by the public at a hearing scheduled for Sept. 10 in Silver Spring. After the hearing, the Planning Board will hold three work sessions before sending final recommendations by Oct. 11 to the County Council, which will ultimately vote on the update of the Clarksburg Master Plan, probably by next spring. In their staff report, planners support growth east of Interstate 270 to complete growing Clarksburg, while limiting growth west of I-270 to protect most of the watershed. Toward that end, they rec-
ommend cutting a Pulte Homes plan for 1,000 housing units west of I-270 down to about 200 units as a way to preserve the cleanest and most biodiverse of the Ten Mile streams. They suggest setting density limits, an impervious surface cap of 8 percent, wider-thanusual stream buffers, new buffers for stream channels that
are dry part of the year, and preserving more of the 538-acre site as parkland or open space. Planners also propose building a winding gravel trail to connect Little Bennett Regional Park and Black Hill Regional Park, opening up the tract to the public. “There would be five trail heads and a 10-acre neighborhood park with maybe a community garden and other low-density uses,” said planner Mary Dolan. “Right now it’s inaccessible.” Board member Norman Dreyfuss argued that the 1994 Master Plan for the build-out of Clarksburg, the fourth and final growth area along the I-270 technology corridor, called for needed housing in that part of the Ten Mile Creek watershed. “It sort of made a commitment about how this town was
See GROWTH, Page A-7
decision looms on Midcounty Highway Road would link Clarksburg to Gaithersburg n
Upcounty residents were briefed last week on plans for Midcounty Highway’s northern extension ahead of a public hearing planned for next week. Montgomery County staff talked to residents at Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg on July 24. The highway, which is partially complete, will stretch from Gaithersburg to Ridge Road in Clarksburg. According to county documents, M-83, or the Midcounty Highway, was first listed in the county’s master plan in the 1960s. Three miles of the highway have been built between
S h a d y Grove Road in Gaithersburg and Montgomery Village Avenue. “This is a major milestone. SYLVIA CARIGNAN [Officials] TACKLING YOUR TRAFFIC CONCERNS. are about YOUR QUESTIONS TO ready to SEND BUMPER@GAZETTE.NET. make a decision after nine years of talking,” said Bruce Johnston, chief of the county’s Transportation Engineering Division, who briefed about 20 people at the meeting on the status of the
See REVIEW, Page A-7
Police lab puts crime under a microscope n
Scientists, analysts break down cases in Gaithersburg facility BY
ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH STAFF WRITER
With tweezers, Leah King takes a pinch out of a small, leafy bud. She drops it in a vial and adds a few drops of chemicals. “It’s going to turn a nice, dark purple,” she predicts, giving the vial a couple of swirls. Sure enough, in just a few seconds, the solution fizzes deep purple, showing that the sample is likely strong, high-quality
marijuana. “If you were looking to smoke, this would be the stuff,” joked King, the technical leader of the Forensic Chemistry Unit in Montgomery County Police’s Crime Laboratory. The lab processes evidence connected to the thousands of arrests police officers make and the hundreds of cases they investigate every year. The nationally certified lab takes up a swath of the fifth floor of Montgomery County’s new public safety headquarters, tucked away next to a bucolic lake on Edison Park Drive in Gaithersburg. The lab — which moved, along with the rest of the department, earlier this year from
the department’s old home in Rockville — looks like a cross between a suburban office and a high school lab on steroids. Five units — Firearms Examinations, Latent Prints, Forensic Biology, Forensic Chemistry, and Crimes Scenes — operate in the lab, which takes up about 20,000 square feet, according to lab director Ray Wickenheiser. A sixth unit, Electronic Crimes, also falls under the lab’s authority, but operates under Montgomery County police’s Financial Crimes section, said Jackie Raskin-Burns, the lab’s quality manager.
See LAB, Page A-7
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Leah King, technical leader of the Forensic Chemistry Unit, works in the Montgomery County Crime Lab, now in its new digs in Gaithersburg.
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