Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett is siding with Costco in a zoning debate over whether the discount store should be permitted to place a gas station at Westfield Wheaton.
In a memo last week to county councilmembers, Leggett said that he opposes Zoning Text Amendment 12-07, which would restrict where "mega" gas stations could be built in the county. If the ZTA passes the County Council, Costco would not be permitted to build its proposed gas station.
Follow Wheaton Patch on Facebook and Twitter.
The ZTA would prohibit gas stations that dispense more than 3.6 million gallons from sites within 1,000 feet of "any public or private school, or any park, playground, or hospital, or other public use, or any use categorized as a cultural, entertainment and recreation use.”
Leggett specifically mentions the proposed Costco gas station as the "only gas station impacted by ZTA 12-07," adding his voice to for unfairly targeting one specific business.
"I am concerned that this sequence of events may send a message to the retail market that the county is an uncertain place to do business," Leggett wrote in the memo.
Check it out: Wheaton Patch has created a page where you can see all of our Costco gas station coverage in reverse chronological order.
As for the station, I am not for it, but I am adamantly against regulations being passed in order to circumvent public hearings under processes that could just as easily result in the denial of a gas station.
The citizens of Wheaton who were truly involved in the redevelopment process got little to nothing of the proposed redevelopment they had woked for when the Council decided 9-0 that they had a better plan that served almost none of the goals identified by the citizens. Even if some Council members felt the citizens/Executive's/developer's plan was not best, the Council could have communicated with the community. Also, I would not have expected a 9-0 vote from a Council that never said a peep about any concerns during the process and never invited public opinion on the newly-hatched plan. We, the citizens of Wheaton, were disregarded. I now wonder whether this decision was as much a slap at the Executive as a decision on how to help Wheaton prosper. Perhaps the Executive in this instance is trying to exert some of his power and could really care less about an effort to pass a one-business regulation. If that's the case and decisions are continuously being made by both sides to show the other branch that they don't have all the power, our County has more problems than most people will ever realize.
Point 1: Please remember that the County Executive originally lobbied Zoning Text Amendment 10-04 that would have allowed the Westfield Wheaton Costco gas station to completely bypass the Special Exception process and community input entirely. While the pretext of ZTA 10-04 was to allow gas stations in regional malls by right, there are only three such malls in the County - one is in the City of Gaithersburg, where ZTA 10-04 would not apply, and the other two are owned by Westfield Group! Since Westfield Mongtomery Mall already has two regular gas stations, ZTA 10-04 could have only applied to the proposed Costco mega gas station for Westfield Wheaton. The practice of changing the zoning law to benefit one site and one corporation has a name - spot zoning - an often-abused legislative tactic that is illegal in some jurdisdictions and frowned upon in others.
Point 2: Unlike the ZTA lobbied by the County Executive, ZTA 12-07 is clearly not spot zoning, even though the Costco gas station would indeed be affected. Mega gas stations are ten times the size of an average station and are a new trend in the retail fueling industry. The County's gas station siting regulations were written in 1953 and simply did not address these types of operations. Costco was the first major retailer to get into discount gasoline sales to draw more customers to their warehouses in late 1990s. Since then, other major corporate retailers like Wal-Mart, BJ's, Sam's Club, Safeway, Giant, and others to enter the gasoline market. Costco has about 350 stations now. In about fifteen years, mega gas station share of the market went from 0 to 12% and climbing steadily. This is clearly a trend that needs to be address by the Council - the County's zoning authority charged to protect the health and well-being of residents. Bottom line: the process is above board, the County Executive's position is clear, and your criticism, however polite, of Ms. French is misplaced.
Totally agree with you that the County, and Wheaton specifically, would greatly benefit if the two branches of government worked together. Your other comments I do have to disagree with - you are once again lionizing the County Executive plan and demonizing the County Council plan. This is incredibly unfair. The Council plan is indeed smaller, but it is very specific, fully funded, and targets Wheaton's most pressing needs and highest priorities. On the other hand, while the Executive's plan with BF Saul was indeed larger, it was short on crucial details, like the timeline and the finances, and was generally characterized as "a pie in the sky" and "a cat in a bag." If your wish for the two branches of government to work together is indeed sincere, lets start with a pledge to stop whitewashing the Executive's initiatives at all costs and disparaging the Council's intentions at every opportunity. I generally enjoy reading your comments, even though we often disagree, so here is to you taking this the right way.
The plan itself was not the point this time, so I included no details. If you want to use my comments to lionize the Council's plan, that's fine.;) As for community involvement, I hope that there is some community input as to the members for the newly proposed Council Wheaton redevelopment group. WUDAC members have already expressed this concern: http://wheaton-md.patch.com/articles/navarro-riemer-introduce-wheaton-working-group. I would want to ensure that homeowners are included; they were not specifically identified as a stakeholder by the Council even though business owners and "other stakeholders" were. WRAC members have not expressed concerns about the Council's proposed group because the tentative date set for appointing members to the Council's group was set for the day before the next WRAC meeting. This sort of group--reviewing what's going on with redevelopment--would have been great before a plan was chosen. It would have had the potential to ensure that the Council considered community concerns. It could also be helpful in the future IF the community has input on who will be part of the group AND the group not only implements the Council's approved parts of the plan, but also has input on future redevelopment ideas.