Saturday, March 6, at 9:00 a.m., adjacent to the park at 100 Pasture Side Way, the City of Rockville will brief King Farm residents about the latest tree and landscape plans for the COPT site.
The relationship between KF, the developer COPT, and the City has been rocky at times. A few years ago, the City and COPT jointly told KF residents at a community meeting what was going to happen to the site: ninety percent of the trees were coming down. It had been approved by the City, with no recourse.
Nearby neighbors Carrie Klabunde, Brad Hess, and Lynda Moulton, along with many others, protested to City Hall. Several homeowners said the City had misled them, and cited signs indicating that the City of Rockville was protecting the trees, not planning to destroy them.
City staff met with the KF External Affairs Committee and advised KF to stop fighting it. Not the City's signs, they said, even though a City ordinance was clearly identified on the signs.
But Mayor Giammo and Councilmembers Phyllis Marcuccio, Susan Hoffman, and especially Anne ("Over my dead body") Robbins sought a way to protect more of the trees. City Manager Scott Ullery proposed some changes to forestation ordinances.
External Affairs and the Board of Trustees challenged the City's original planning process. The City Attorney agreed on several points and COPT and the City were sent back to the drawing board.
COPT and the City came up with a plan to save about fifty percent of the trees. The plan was presented to KF residents two years ago, with a commitment to get back with more details about screening and landscaping. That is the genesis of the meeting Saturday.
Among the discussion points of the meeting two years ago:
• The goal of the screening should be to thicken the border with plantings of various sizes, including evergreens for winter screening.
• The plantings should be done with minimum damage to the existing forest.
• The plantings should be done in a timely way to screen from construction activites and there should be no construction worker parking on KF streets.
Here's hoping for a good briefing. The trees are of interest to all KF residents; the backdrop they form frames all of King Farm and the retention of a tree border is essential to maintaing property values throughout the whole community.
--Jon Oberg
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