Forest Buffer Around Mall at Stake in Sector Plan

Without protection, the five-acre green space between the Wheaton mall and its bordering neighborhoods could shrink and eventually disappear.

This is why the Audubon Naturalist Society and other environmental groups say they are pushing to include language that preserves this buffer zone in the Wheaton Sector Plan, a document that will guide redevelopment decisions in Wheaton for at least the next decade.

But the Montgomery County planning department strongly opposes this change.

The five-acre buffer in question lies between Westfied’s southern and western property line and the Ring Road that encircles its large parking lot, and ranges in width from 30 to 200 feet.

The Montgomery County Council and unanimously approved it with a straw vote. The council plans to take action Nov. 29, but asked the county’s planning department staff to first reexamine the buffer in consultation with Audubon.

Audubon’s proposed additional language would specify the size and location of the forest buffer in the sector plan’s text and maps, expand the buffer’s width by 20 feet and provide for “permanent and legal protection of the buffer.”

This “permanent and legal protection” would be a conservation easement--or permanent attachment to a property deed--that would preserve the portion of forest, explained Diane Cameron of the Audubon Naturalist Society.

Protecting the buffer would also protect the Sligo Creek and Lower Rock Creek watersheds, Cameron added.

Khalid Afzal, the principal county planner involved, disagrees with the language proposed by Cameron. He told Patch on Monday that he did not think it would be realistic to include the buffer expansion in the sector plan, but that the buffer should be augmented by planting more trees.

Afzal said that after measuring the buffer area, exchanging emails with Audubon and receiving input from Westfield, he sent draft language to the county council staff on Friday.

“It’s up to the county council now,” Afzal said.

Danila Sheveiko, a member of the Kensington Heights Civic Association, said he is concerned about the runoff from the future Costco at Westfield--runoff that will flow into the headwaters of Silver Creek and Kensington Branch. He sees the buffer as an important shield for not only this runoff, but also for the noise, light and air pollution from the mall.

Audubon, the Anacostia Watershed Society, the Rock Creek Conservancy, GreenWheaton and various other groups are circulating an “action alert,” asking people to call and email members of the Montgomery County Council about the buffer zone.

Françoise Carrier, the planning board chair, has questioned the county council’s authority to require the Westfield property to take these conservation steps. “I’m not sure if the sector plan is the right vehicle for this action,” she said at the Nov. 15 worksession.

Both Carrier and Afzal said that the Forest Conservation Law provides sufficient protection for the buffer.

But Cameron argues that the county council has already set a precedent--twice--for including master plan specifics for protecting forest buffers: in Germantown and White Flint.

Afzal objected to the term “forest buffer.” The official planning department definition of a forest encompasses “those areas that have at least 100 trees per acre with at least 50 percent of those trees having a two-inch or greater diameter at 4.5 feet above the ground.”

“Not every bunch of trees is a forest buffer,” he said.

Without the protective language, Cameron worries that the buffer could suffer “death by 1,000 cuts” or a catastrophic loss of more than half the area--as it has already experienced in the last two years.

When Westfield sold parcels of its property that included extensions of the forest buffer, the green space shrunk from 10 acres to the current five acres, Cameron said. The two areas sold for development, known as Outlot B and Mt. McComas, are both in excavation and construction phases.

“We need to preserve this land, and the sector plan is the place to do this,” said Cameron.