Webb Tract Redevelopment Inches Closer

The Montgomery County Council approved $1.29 million on Tuesday to design the widening of an 1,100-yard stretch of Snouffer School Road, a project that helps pave the way for the county’s plan to turn the adjacent 130-acre Webb Tract into home to the county’s police and fire/rescue training academy, the school system’s food distribution warehouse and a pair of maintenance depots.

Using $16.8 million already approved, Snouffer School Road will be widened from two lanes to four between Ridge Heights Drive and Centerway Road. Two northbound lanes will be built along the Webb Tract’s edge, which the county bought for $46.6 million.

The road construction is slated to begin in spring of 2014 and will take 18 months. That includes a traffic light at Alliston Hollow Way’s intersection with Snouffer School, a five-foot-wide sidewalk on the western side of Snouffer School and an eight-foot-wide hiker/biker trail on the eastern side.

The widening is one of many small precursors to County Executive Isiah Leggett’s "Smart Growth Initiative," a massive project to move more than a dozen county facilities to Gaithersburg, Derwood and the Webb Tract. With more than $400 million both in expenditures and revenues, it is the largest capital project Montgomery County has ever attempted.

The existing Public Safety Training Academy sits on 52 acres on Great Seneca Highway and Key West Avenue. Building a new PSTA on the Webb Tract enables the county to sell that land to become a 3,000-home community, a crucial part of the 900-acre "Science City" approved last year. The MCPS food warehouse is currently in the County Service Park on Crabbs Branch Way, next to the Shady Grove Metro station. Those 90 acres are slated to become a mixed-use community.

The project to widen Snouffer School had sparked internal debate as County Council analysts doubted the project’s need, given meager traffic projections relative to a previously approved plan to build a private industrial/office park there. A traffic study found that the Public Safety Training Academy and the MCPS food warehouse will generate 289 morning peak-hour trips and 140 evening peak-hour trips, compared to 1,347 trips and 1,196 trips, respectively, for the previous plan.

At subcommittee sessions on Feb. 12 and March 17, councilmen Roger Berliner and Hans Riemer questioned whether the money wouldn’t be better spent elsewhere. 

Transportation officials countered that residents have been clamoring for the county to make Snouffer School Road safer.

"I’ve been around the county a little bit," said Edgar Gonzalez, director of the county's Department of Transportation. "This is the first time ever that a community is supporting the widening of a road."

But council analysts determined that the project "is simply not warranted in the mid-term future, and is certainly not warranted by the low level of development now planned for the Webb Tract."

Berliner and Riemer were eventually won over by the argument that county officials have been promising the roadway improvements to residents along Snouffer School, especially Hunters Woods, which faces the Webb Tract.

Councilman Phil Andrews, whose district covers Hunters Woods, stepped up in support the project. The need to make Snouffer School Road safer impels the county to follow through on its promises, he said, particularly since Hunters Woods does not have a civic or homeowners association to advocate on their behalf.

"The county is their first and final line of defense," Andrews said at the March 17 work session. "So if the county lets them down … I wouldn’t blame people who said, ‘You know what, you can’t be trusted.'"

The full council approved the $1.29 million appropriation on Tuesday without discussion.

A separate $23.7 million project will widen Snouffer School from Centerway Road to Woodfield Road by the end of 2016. Community leaders had asked the county to widen Snouffer School from Ridge Heights Drive north to Goshen Road.

"That’s impractical for us to do," said Diane Schwartz Jones, Leggett’s point person on the Smart Growth Initiative.

The MCPS food warehouse is set to open in September 2013. The Public Safety Training Academy is projected for full occupancy by the end of 2014. The parks department’s maintenance depot and MCPS building maintenance depot are also set to open by the end of 2014.