Meeting Minutes
November 16, 2004
Attendees: Faith Klareich, Carl Henn, Gerald Leighton, Tolulope Odunlami, Geoff Sanders
Absent: Daniel Earnest, Jaskaran Singh, and Alicia Hosmer
Agenda:
1. Welcome, News and Agenda Review
2. Review and Approval of 10/12 Meeting Minutes
Comments by Friday 11/19.
3. Neighborhood Environmental Summit
Neighborhood Environmental Summit Summary – Faith distributed a summary of the findings from the Env. Summit. Feedback requested by Friday, November 19. Specifically, Faith requested feedback on the last two chapters added to page 2.
Gerry asks for a definition of “Environment” in connection with Faith’s suggestion to present a “State of the Environment” at the Annual/Biannual Env. Summit Meeting.
4. Staff Update
Commission Vacancy Recruitment
No announcement for Charles Griffith’s position yet. Daniel Earnest also forwarded an e-mail indicating that he would no longer be able to take part in the Commission. Daniel Earnest also indicated that he would also have to resign his position on the commission due to new responsibilities at work.
Update on College Gardens Low Impact Development Study
Gerry mentioned that there was high interest in rain barrels. Need to know how many people would be interested in installing rain gardens. Rain gardens would be much more work. Success depends on soil properties and the proper plants must be used. According to Gerry only native plants will be used in the rain gardens. Some want to try French drains but this would be expensive and should have been done (ideally) prior to the building of the development. Money needs to be spent by November 2005.
Gerry also indicated a possible issue that my surface relating to a College Gardens resident installing a canopy over their above-ground pool. The canopy is an eye-soar. In addition when the resident drained their pool (in accordance with the City’s request) they drained it into their neighbor’s back yard who just happens to be an ex-Mayor of Rockville, VanGrack.
Gerry sat in on the interviews for the candidates for Pam Rowe’s position. There were two acceptable (equally qualified) candidates. The candidate who was offered the position is a good fit. Gerry also mentioned that once a budget is worked out they should hire additional people for fill similar positions due to the work load and duties associated with the job.
Liaison with other Boards and Commissions
Wait to get comments from Mayor and Council before moving forward with this. Carl mentioned that the Bicycle Commission had a similar idea and interested in getting a liaison with ARNA.
Faith spoke with someone from ARNA and she try and follow up. ARNA’s (Alliance of Rockville Neighborhood Associations) next meeting will take place in February.
Gerry attended the last meeting held by the Traffic and Transportation Commission.
New development planned for the area on the Shady Grove Rd. side of King Farm. Will be mixed use development with business on the first floor (Street level) and residences upstairs. Will cause big traffic problems. King Farm and College Gardens residents do not want the traffic. Possibility is to extend Choke Cherry Road and dump the traffic onto Gude Dr. This will create a noise problem. Possible solution is to create more mass transit along Shady Grove Road. The developer must do traffic analysis and develop a plan to deal with the increased traffic.
Faith – Need to develop talking points for the liaisons to use during the commission meetings they attend.
What are the commissions we would be interested in meeting with? Need to review the Charters. Carl has the Charters and will review them and develop a list of the top 5. Tolu will start to develop talking points for the liason to use during he meetings.
Zoning Ordinance/Code Update
Tolu researched the changes in the Energy Code. State passed new energy code within the past two years. The same code was adopted by the County and City. He will send links to sites where more information is available.
5. Discussion of Joint Session with Transportation Commission
Carl was interested in discussing the Traffic Comm. feeling on increased dependency on gas powered vehicles and the huge pollution impact that increased traffic has. Feels lack of mobility is the large problem.
Gerry was interested in discussing the traffic impacts of the new Town Center. Also interested in discussing the addition of another interchange for 270 onto W. Gude.
6. Discussion of Sustainability Principles
Faith provided some background about the goals of the Environment Commission specifically relating to developing a sustainability plan for Rockville. The Transportation Commission received copies of the Memo that was presented Mayor and Council. They were interested in knowing what the city would do with the sustainability document. They said it needed “teeth” and asked about metrics. Rich asked what the Env. Commission’s interest was in the Transportation Commission’s response to the sustainability memo. Feedback?
Faith indicated that any feedback would be good and that the two commissions share many common issues. There should be a joint commitment to process these issues together.
Proposed model? The Commission is moving towards developing the model the initial principles approved.
The Transportation Commission would be interested in seeing the details of the sustainability model particularly how it will relate to traffic related issues.
7. Update on Noise Study with Consultant
RK&K Noise Study Contractor
Presentation on the initial findings from the noise study.
Recommended using Leq as the main metric. (Level of equivalent sound). Average noise rating over an hour and pick the worst hour of the day.
This study focused only on noise produced by traffic so loud music, for example, was not included.
