Report from 11/3/2004 MUTC meeting
I have some more material to discuss from last Monday's Town Council meeting, but I'm going to write up the MUTC meeting from Wednesday (?) first. (I've got a few nieces and a sister-in-law in town this week, so things are pretty chaotic right now).

The main topic of the meeting was an application for a church to move into one of the beige brick storefronts in Town Center. The Town Center (and most of the Route 1 corridor) are in a new zone - the Mixed Use Town Center zone - and churches are not one of the explicitly permitted uses. Just as you can't put a grocery store in a residential zone, you can't (without going through a special process) put a church in a MUTC zone.

Part of that process is asking the Town's MUTC committee to make a recommendation (to the Town Council) for or against allowing the church to move in. The committee, concerned about a storefront that would usually be empty in the midst of a developing retail area, recommended against granting a waiver. I think this was a good idea, and hope the council supports it. The committee pointed out that there were areas in town that were zoned to allow churches, and recommended that the Town work with the church to find another location.

Then the interesting part of the meeting started.

The committee started discussing developments that were "on the horizon". The first was that an auto repair shop on Route 1 (I'll try to update with the name later, after I find my notes ;-)) was planning to become a "high-end" gas station / convenience store (this according to Chris Davis, Ward 1 Council Rep).

The second, and far more important, was that a developer was working to put in an enormous mixed-use development on Route 1 in Hyattsville (a little bit will be in Riverdale Park). According to Town Administrator Pat Prangley, the plan is for 500-700 housing units, and 80,000 sq ft of retail space. It will be a few stories tall, with retail on the ground floor, offices above, and loft apartments above that. This is going to have an enormous impact on the area.

Remember, you heard it here first! It would be nice if we heard about these things in the Town Crier.

A slightly more worrisome looming development is the athletic center at DeMatha High School. They are raising funds to build an athletic center, and there may be enormous traffic tie-ups and parking problems associated with it. We'll have to keep an eye on this project and work with DeMatha to make sure it doesn't cause too many problems.
- posted by Alan K. Thompson @ 9:16 AM