Council Rejects Design Plan to Replace Maryland Book Exchange

City Council will recommend that the county disapprove a developer application to build a where the currently stands.

Council came to the decision after listening to the Tuesday night, who said the building would be too big for that area of the neighborhood, and that it wouldn’t compliment the historic nature of Old Town. Many expressed concern about inviting more than 1,000 students to live in that area, northeast of the intersection of College and Baltimore avenues.

“I think the density of the student housing … is difficult to handle,” Old Town Civic Association President Kathy Bryant said at Tuesday’s meeting. Most of the students would be undergraduates.

But one of the project’s developers, Ilya Zusin said those problems will exist whether the project goes through or not.

“This development isn’t the problem,” but rather an already rocky relationship between residents and students, he said.

. Both developer Zusin and City Planning Director Terry Schum said their disagreement stemmed from a fundamental difference of opinion over what the Central U.S. 1 Corridor Sector Plan requires for development along Baltimore Avenue.

One of the biggest disagreements is whether or not the , behind the development, is considered residential. If it’s residential, the the building into the neighborhood. The design is called a stepback.

The area adjacent the backside of the development includes a police station, , , and the Episcopal Student Center.

The city calls it a residential area, but Zusin disagrees.

“Even if there are a couple people renting a room upstairs [in the student center], it’s not a residential area,” Zusin said, and points to the Sector Plan diagrams which show single-family homes to designate residential areas.

But council sided with city staff, and voted down the application 6-1-1.

“Having a church does not make it a nonresidential area,” said.

This is the first development to fall under the Sector Plan, which recommends goals, policies, strategies, and actions pertaining to land use, zoning and development, according to the county planning board website.

“I’m very concerned about the precedent this is going to set,” Wojahn said. He agreed with the developer’s attorney, , but he said there are also parts that are binding.

“One of those provisions is the ,” he said.

The council’s vote is not a final decision on the fate of the development project, but a recommendation to the county. The Prince George’s County Planning Department will hear the case on Thursday, Nov. 3.