Notes prepared by Ed Murtagh Notes from April 20, 2011 WRAC Meeting. Rob Klein provided brief updates on Wheaton Redevelopment. There have been a lot of discussion activity related the WMATA bus bays, coordination with SHA, financial issues related to the B.F Saul Redevelopment project. Rob noted that they are now getting starting to get into the thick of the Wheaton Redevelopment now. ˙WRAC Membership was discussed. The County will announce WRAC vacancies soon. The WRAC will have a booth at the Taste of Wheaton. They can use the both as a venue to get the word out to potential new WRAC members. Natalie Cantor provided some updates from the Mid-County Regional Service Center Updates. Natalie distributed an article from the Examiner about Costco. There was a grain of truth in the article, but over misleading. She encouraged WRAC members to make comments about the article to help set the record straight. ˙A Palm Reading Business has come to Wheaton. There is a perception that this type of business is not legal. Natalie noted that as a result of a court decision a few years ago, palm reading is now leading. There was also a concern about the signage and whether it was legal. Natalie updated the WRAC on aggressive towing in Wheaton. A couple of predatory towing companies are causing problems in Wheaton. The County will first meet with businesses to go over the towing regulations. There is a $500/day fine for non-compliance. ˙Next, the County will work with the Towing Companies. The County is concerned in part because the companies have been targeting non-English speaking drivers. Some of these drivers can not read the signage and do not know their rights. The County will be going out the Wheaton communities to go over their rights. David Diser Director of General Services gave a budget update. The Wheaton Redevelopment CIP has been impacted by the drop in revenue by the County. The County needs to be able to service the debt from the Capital Bonds used to fund the Wheaton Redevelopment. ˙A high debt to income ratio will have a negative impact on our County Bond Rating. ˙The Wheaton Library/Recreation Center project design was going to be funded at least in part from the funds left over from the cancellation of the Rafferty Recreation Center project. Unfortunately for Wheaton, the County OMB took the funds for other priorities. Mr. Diser did say that funding for the design services is now in the FY 2012 budget. In FY 2013 the project goes into the Engineering Phase and the County will complete an acquisition of the Recreation Center property from the Parks. ˙This project has broad support and Mr. Diser expects it to get construction funding in FY 2013. Overall Mr. Diser expects that there will be a one year delay on the project, which considering the economic environment, is pretty good. Mr. Diser noted that the some of the funds for Street-scaping was reduced in FY 2012. The bulk of the FY 2012 Redevelopment Funds will be used for staff time and engineering services for street re-routing and behind the scenes work related to Wheaton Redevelopment. The next round of CIP (FY 2013- FY 2018) will include funds for only some County projects. Mr. Diser noted that the mid-county projects are in good shape for being funded. The main item of the meeting was the proposed town square. Bob Wulff from B.F. Saul opened with a brief discussion of the proposed Wheaton Town Square and other open space and then turned the presentation over to the architects. A video crew was present taping the presentation. The presentation will be posted on the New Wheaton Downtown website in a few weeks and will be used provide the public information about the redevelopment plans instead of relying on blogs and newspaper articles that have provided misleading and uninformed information about the redevelopment process in the past. ˙Over the past several weeks, the B. F. Saul Team (Torti Callas & Partners and Michael Vergason Landscape Architects) worked with a broadly represented Ad Hoc committee to come up with three concepts for a Town Square. During the first Ad Hoc Committee meeting, the B.F. Saul team obtained feedback from the participants. During the second meeting, the B.F. Saul team presented their concepts based on the feedback from the initial meeting. The Ad Hoc committee members provided comments on the three concepts. The B. F. Team then presented to the WRAC the open space in the Redevelopment and the three town square concepts. Open space features include a providing a small square at the location of the Mid County Building. This square will provide an overlook to the new Town Square. Between the office towers and the hotels, courtyards with seating are planned to break up the building structures. The site will include a downtown plaza near Georgia Ave and Reedie Dr. that includes sculpture and art. B.F. Saul envisions the Triangle Lane becoming alive and active . The lane will become pedestrian friendly though some traffic will be allowed. To improve pedestrian safety, the team is considering large cross walk striping on Reedie Dr. An example of the cross walk striping used at the National Zoo was given. The three town square concepts were then presented by Michael Vergason. Some other common themes in all the concepts: * Flexible space for Taste of Wheaton, group exercise areas, play areas. * Movable and Fixed Seating * Green features walls, floor, canopy * the square will be approximately double the size of the square. The square will be located at the lower end of the parking lot by Reedie Dr. The square was sized to accommodate the Taste of Wheaton plus 25% growth. The Wheaton Patch's recent article on the Town Square did a good job in describing the three concepts. The Three Concepts as described in the Patch included: Square: A square of grass with two raised elements (sculptures, fountain, etc.) at each diagonal point, bordered by trees. Lawn: A larger grass area (at its broadest: 130 feet by 90 feet), that slopes down towards Reedie with stepped levels. Trees line three sides of the square with one side (fronting Reedie) reserved for a stone/dry fountain element. Vergason˙also spoke about a possible installation of a screen element that would serve as a multi-purpose exhibit, or allow for projection of movies Grove: Modeled on town square styles popular in Central America, the plan shows several layers of trees that would let in some light during summer and all light during winter (the trees would be deciduous). The center would be landscaped with soft gravel instead of grass and would have a stage/sculpture element in one corner. Vergason said that actual effect of the trees would not be as dense at eye level as shown in the concept aerial.