Barbara Johnson’s thoughts about the new Greenbriar housing developments echo what many in Potomac have been saying recently. “We live in a rural area. They’re giving us a suburban development, and it’s not what we want,” she said.
The Greenbriar project is made up of two developments, Greenbriar Preserve and The Estates of Greenbriar Preserve, each consisting of 31 detached, single-family houses.
The project received unanimous approval on Thursday, Oct. 18 from the Planning Board, among those present (Commissioners Wendy Perdue and Meredith Wellington were absent). Developers hope to start construction in early summer. The houses are expected to be priced between $1.5 million and $3 million
They are being built on the serpentine barrens, a geologically rare area near Piney Meetinghouse and Glen roads. The new houses are being developed in rural neighborhood cluster zoning, which will preserve a large portion of the barrens as a conservation park.
When the developers presented their preliminary plan last April, abutting property owners raised issues regarding a previously unrecognized stream and compatibility with existing houses.
PARK AND PLANNING staff believed that they had addressed these issues. “We applied the applicable 100-foot buffer [in the stream area],” said Wynn Witthans, of Park and Planning staff.
The developers also moved some of lots that abutted existing homeowners to the interior of the parcel, increasing the lot size and making the new lots more compatible. “This has achieved a high level of compatibility,” Witthans said.
The average size of the perimeter lots increased from approximately 22,000 to 33,000 square feet, said Bob Harris, attorney for the developer. The abutting lots are in a one-house-per-two-acre zone (about 80,000-square-feet).
“To me it does represent a maximum of compatibility,” said Harris.
RESIDENTS DISAGREE. “It’s very wooded. It’s very pristine. It’s very rural,” Johnson said of the parcel now, explaining that the suburban-style subdivision will not be in character with the current area. “It’s not the same as what’s there.”
Other residents came to ask for concessions from the developers, such as adding sewer service to their homes, since the new development will have sewer.
“If someone dies, people mourn. They only mourn half as much if they get $300,000,” said Laurana Reed. Reed has a five-acre property abutting the new development and allows her horses to graze in the gas line easement which runs next to her land and through the Greenbriar plot.
“I would like my feelings to be considered, at least prior to the people who don’t even live there, yet,” Reed said.
ANOTHER ABUTTING property owner conceded that the developers were trying to be accommodating. “The developers, we acknowledge, have made a lot of changes,” said Carol McHugh.
McHugh wants assurance that the fencing and tree buffers being installed will be maintained.
Residents were told that a homeowners association will be created, and it will be responsible for maintaining the buffering.
Although residents got most of the concessions they wanted, they are still unhappy about the new neighborhood that will be built next to them. “It’s taking away our lifestyle,” Johnson said.
Reed dreads the thought of more traffic and more people. She believes that the people who would put mansion-sized houses on relatively small lots would be better served living in Bethesda or Chevy Chase.
“All these people are making a mess of Potomac, Maryland,” she said.