Commentary: Planning for the Board

Last Thursday, developers rolled out their plans for replacing the county planning board's headquarters on Georgia Avenue at Spring Street. And there was a running theme: none of the three designs placed the new building on the block's corner, that all-important "gateway" separating city from suburb.

Instead, two developers dropped the board's HQ onto Spring Street. (One developer claimed that a Spring Street address would remind residents of the town's history. As if the name "Silver Spring" wasn't doing it.) A third developer moved the board down Georgia Avenue towards Cameron Street.

Why not set up shop on the corner? One developer at Thursday's meeting put it this way: It would cost the board millions to rent temporary office space while a new HQ is built over the footprint of the old HQ (below, or check out a satellite image of the existing building's footprint.)

So what's a planning board to do? Well, it should plan.

If the board can't (or won't) cough up the cash for temporary digs during construction, then it should plan on loving its new Spring Street address. If the board decides to stay on the corner, then it should plan for an awkward architectural transition from the two-story Woodside suburbs to a much taller gateway into Silver Spring.

Whatever the planning board decides, it should plan for the consequences.

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"The Next Big Thing" (The Daily Penguin)