![]() But I doubt that will happen anytime soon. Maybe a sudden upsurge in business activity would require that the grass be repaved or graveled over for parking. And the land would still be there for future development, if the owners change their minds or business starts to expand. There would still be plenty of paved parking anyway. The developers and property owners would still have to mow, but that might not be much more expensive than maintaining asphalt. That at least would let stormwater soak in and drain more slowly into our local streams. In the short run, I propose that owners of our local shopping centers and office buildings try an experiment: In cooperation with the city and county, we should gradually convert some of their surplus asphalt surface parking to just plain old grass. To implement all of this, we may need easier exceptions to the current rules, so that businesses and housing can move in or expand without necessarily adding unneeded parking spaces. Pleasant, complete streets allow people who don’t want to drive everywhere to walk, bike, or take the bus instead, which frees up road space for people who do need to drive. We can push our city, county and state to truly implement “complete streets” that make it easier for people to walk, bike or take the bus to get around. In the medium run, we should encourage mixed use areas (housing plus commercial plus office space in the same vicinity that can share parking throughout the day) and focus new residential development near Metrorail and along major bus routes instead in the middle of nowhere. There is a public meeting next Tuesday (January 27 th) at 6pm at the MNCPPC Administration building to explain our county’s plans for a zoning update that could help rein in incentives for “greenfield” sprawl and encourage re-development or retrofitting of already-paved suburban areas instead. ![]() ![]() What can we do about this? In the long run, communities like Greenbelt need to fight for more sensible zoning rules that prioritize people and public use features over unnecessary car parking and sprawl facilitation. The runoff from the Greenbelt’s excess asphalt contributes to the frequent flooding along the NE Branch trail, which a key tributary of the Anacostia River, and parallels my bike commuting route to College Park, Hyattsville and DC. Greenbelt’s empty parking lots are ugly, and they are a tremendous waste of potentially useful space. Unused Parking Areas Behind Greenway Center (Greenbelt Road at Hanover Parkway) Empty Parking Lots Behind Beltway Plaza (Greenbelt Road at Cherrywood Lane) Unnecessary asphalt is a feature, not a bug. So we’ve engineered empty parking lots into our planning system. Why is this? The answer always seems to be: “Because it’s the zoning rules.” The rules apparently require builders to pave more parking spaces than they estimate would ever be filled, even on the busiest day of the year. Capital Office Park along Cherrywood LaneĪlthough one day isn’t necessarily the average, and some office parks may have significant vacancies, it’s pretty obvious that Greenbelt’s commercial areas have at least twice as much parking as they currently need. Capital Office Park had tier after tier of empty lots. The whole strip between Beltway Plaza and Breezewood Drive was completely empty, as were the upstairs parking levels. The offices behind Greenway Center are surrounded by a moat of empty parking lots. Our goal was to see how many parking lots around our shopping centers and office parks sit empty on an average workday. It was between 2 and 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon. Last winter, my wife and I took a bike ride around Greenbelt, Maryland.
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