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Updates on the West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector Plan

Posted on: July 12, 2024

By SOFIE PATERNITE

The M-NCPPC Prince George’s County Planning Department led a discussion at the June 11 informational open house about the second staff draft of the West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector Plan. Photo credit: Sofie Paternite

A joint public hearing to discuss the second staff draft of the West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector Plan originally scheduled for July 8 was postponed to September. As of press time, it is unclear why the meeting was postponed. County planning staff say the plan is a development strategy that will modernize West Hyattsville, leading to more apartments and multi-family units, so that the West-Hyattsville Metro and Hyattsville Crossing Metro station areas will allow for greater population density and walkability. 

Residents presented their concerns about the second draft plan to the county planning department at two in-person open houses in June. Planning staff have been amending the plan’s details to accommodate public testimonies from the previous hearing in October 2022.

Recent history

The largest adjustment in the second draft plan is providing more housing opportunities for what Project Manager Scott Rowe refers to as the “missing middle.” Converting single-family homes into duplexes or triplexes, rather than apartments, will encourage families with children to move to the area, he said.

“[There] has to be something in the middle for middle income professionals, for students, for people that want to live close to Metro, but can’t necessarily afford a large home,” Rowe said. 

The proposed rezoning of the Queens Chapel Manor neighborhood between Ager Road and the Queens Chapel Road would allow for residential single-family attached homes, such as duplexes, catering to a higher population density. However, owners of single-family homes can choose to keep their homes intact, according to Rowe. 

Sarah Benton, the project’s facilitator and supervisor within the planning department, said that increasing the number and diversity of housing options prevents skyrocketing home prices and concurrent displacement of residents. 

Challenges and concerns

Residents have expressed ongoing concerns that the plan could lead to increased property taxes, and they worry about the pressure that increased population density places on schools and infrastructure. Other concerns include lack of community outreach, distrust of the planning process, and environmental damage.

Rowe said the county council is drafting legislation to provide property tax relief to those who need it and to stabilize rents. Planning Department Acting Deputy Director James Hunt said developers are required to pay a fee to the public school system to accommodate additional students. This fee, however, can be used at any school in the county, and developers have successfully petitioned to have such fees waived or reduced in the past. Rowe suggested an alternative option would be assigning students to schools that have seat availability. This would involve changing school boundaries.

Resident José Centeno-Meléndez said that, as an alum of Northwestern High School, he can testify that the school system has been, and continues to be, overcrowded. 

“We’re just led to believe that student success and education and the type of city and county services that are really needed are more of an afterthought,” Centeno-Meléndez said.

Residents also worry about parking. While transit-oriented living sounds ideal and is better for the environment, some residents said it is unrealistic for people to not use cars, and a higher population density will further strain the overflowing street parking. Additionally, some residents’ work schedules do not align with train schedules.

Resident Alexi Sanchez said, “I told [county staff] early on, there might be some streets in our neighborhood that could possibly accommodate two-family, three-family homes, but certainly not every street. There are some streets where there are literally two cars [that] cannot go past each other on the same road.” 

The plan also calls for wider sidewalks to accommodate pedestrians. However, sidewalk expansion would require significant tree removal, resident Jennifer Kubit said at the June 20 online information session. 

“Nobody’s really against bike lanes or more pedestrian-friendly [infrastructure]; it’s more like a choice between the trees or the pedestrian-friendly,” Kubit clarified. 

Resident Paul Donnelly said he is worried that the planning board is unaware of how many houses will be impacted by zoning changes, and that it has not conducted studies on traffic, parking and water runoff. 

“This is something the planning folks want to do to the neighborhood. It’s not something they’re doing for the neighborhood,” Donnelly said. 

Donnelly added that the planning board is not doing enough community outreach about the proposed changes.

County staff have conducted open houses, interviews and virtual town halls over the last few years. However, residents said there is not enough turnout at these events to account for public opinion and that mailed postcards are insufficient notice. 

Centeno-Meléndez and other residents said that the planning board’s lack of transparency and mischaracterization of Hyattsville has bred distrust. Centeno-Meléndez said that the identity of Hyattsville is not being accounted for by the planning board, and as a long-time resident, this is concerning to him.

“This idea of there not being a cohesive identity or readily identifiable identity just really makes a case for like [planners] to create a clean slate and to remarket Hyattsville as this open canvas to make of it what planners will,” he said.

At the June 26 open house, Kubit added that it is unclear why Queens Chapel Manor was selected for this plan, because other surrounding neighborhoods like University Park and Queensbury are also within the proposed 15-minute walking stream to the Hyattsville Metro lines.

Sanchez said that West Hyattsville was an undesirable area to move to when he became a resident, and to have planners propose a redevelopment plan and call his neighborhood “extremely valuable property” was a surprise to him.

“And I feel like historically, it doesn’t feel like the attention paid to the area is actually reflective of that sentiment. And I think my main concern is it breeds mistrust, right? This feels like it came out of nowhere,” resident Jenny Wesberry said in agreement with Sanchez.

Lastly, residents raised concerns about the permitting process for floodplain mitigation. They said permitted reconstruction has unintentionally affected adjacent lots, and it has contributed to wastewater causing erosion in the Anacostia River. Residents called the current county permit system, through Prince George’s County Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement, “broken,” and they are fearful of further development under a “broken system.”

Community Support

Other residents support the plan because they believe it will lead to more neighbors, walkability and diversity, along with higher property values. 

“I like living near other people. I like having a dense community. I like being able to walk to places, to walk to the grocery store — I would be thrilled honestly if I had three more families living next to me,” resident Monica Gorman said at a June 20 information session with the city council. 

Resident Joe Kane agreed that the walkability of Hyattsville is attractive to current homeowners: “We want the more dense, more walkable, more bikeable area.”

Kane added that residents should not be exclusionary when deciding how to increase population density. 

“I think that the thing that would be sort of disappointing, and not in keeping with the character of Hyattsville, would be if we stop being welcoming,” Kane said. 

Greater housing availability could increase home value, according to Kane, and he said that assertions that increasing housing availability decreases property values rely on inaccurate assumptions about both zoning and home prices in Queens Chapel Manor.

“Just making it legal to build a duplex doesn’t mean it happens, especially if you have people in the area who are fighting tooth and nail to prevent property owners from doing what they want with their own property,” Kane said.

What’s next?

Rowe said he wants to make sure all resident concerns are addressed. Throughout the June 11 open house, Rowe said the strength of the plan relies on community feedback to the planning board and county council. He encouraged residents to keep coming to outreach events to voice opinions.

“Change is very challenging, and it’s scary, and people often are concerned about the end [result]. And so part of a planning process is helping communities, or empowering communities, to be able to embrace change and to be able to know how to advocate for what they need,” he  said.

A public hearing will be held in September for the planning board and county council to hear testimony from the community on the second draft of the plan.  After the hearing, the planning department will review feedback and propose, to the planning board, any amendments to the draft plan.

The Hyattsville Life & Times reported on earlier stages of the West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector planning here, and here, and on a recent county council discussion on the role of sector plans here.

To register to speak or submit comments or written testimony about the draft plan, please go to https://pgccouncil.us/Speak. For those unable to use the portal, comments/written correspondence may be emailed to:
clerkofthecouncil@co.pg.md.us or faxed to (301) 952-5178.

A prior version of this article referred to the county planning board instead of the  M-NCPPC Prince George’s County planning department in several instances.


Sofie Paternite is an intern with Streetcar Suburbs Publishing. 

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