County Proposes Massive Sidewalks in Windermere

The house set backs and appealing expanse of green lawns and landscaping all the way to the paved roads defines the appealing street scape of almost all of the communities built in North Bethesda and Potomac since their inceptions. Windermere, unlike some of its neighboring communities built in the same era, however, has curbs, sewers, and gutters. The older adjoining community of half acred lots in Luxmanor, in contrast, lacks all of these, and instead uses open drainage ditches to direct rain water. The same is true of many older communities where the green lawns roll all the way from the house down to the edge of the paved streets.

Most if not all of these suburban community developers elected not to have sidewalks installed even though between 10 to 15 feet of land from the edge of each lot to the center of the roadways was dedicated to the county for maintenance and emergency vehicle access.

Home buyers, who shop for homes along the Tuckerman Lane, Falls Road, and River Road corridors do not turn away if a community lacks sidewalks. In fact, homebuyers often compete to buy these comfortable homes, because they are well located, and the curb appeal due to the visual appearance of the expanse of green lawn is enticing.

Montgomery County Government proposed to the residents of Windermere, where houses sit on just 1/4 to 1/3 acre lots, five foot wide sidewalks for the first section of the community. Prior to submitting the proposal, the county’s arborist identified each type of tree that would be required to be cut down and then have the roots ground so that the trees would never grow back. In all, it is just under 70 mature trees.

These are northern oak, willow oak, red oak, pin oak, purple leaf cherry, black cherry, little leaf linden, red maple, silver maple, sugar maple, black gum, dogwood, kwanzan cherry, kousa dogwood, sugar maple, silver maple, Norway maple, crape myrtyle, crab apple, white pine, holly hedge, boulevard cypress, and tulip poplar.

If these trees are cut down, if their stumps are ground, if sidewalks are paved over where the mature trees stood, it would take close to a lifetime for Windermere to recover its gorgeous tree canopy.

Your run of the mill sidewalk is only three feet wide, and on both sides of a street, typically installed when a community is built. Windermere is about 50 years old now, and the developers clearly did not envision a sidewalk on both sides of the street let alone a massive five foot wide sidewalk on just one side of the street as proposed. As is plainly evident when we compare neighboring subdivisions in Potomac and North Bethesda, there are no sidewalks in most of these communities, because most of these communities were designed without cut through traffic in mind, which means that the streets are safe to walk. And, these communities were designed as bedroom communities for commuting and were located along the bus line.

Yes, some families would like sidewalks for different and legitimate reasons. There are many communities where the planning took sidewalks into account when home sizes and house set backs were determined. The end result is not an afterthought, but proper scaling, proper set backs, and nothing that produces a visual jolt from the curb or from the front door.

Real estate agents know what buyers want, because they are trained to carefully listen. If sidewalks are a would like to have or a must have on the wish list, homes in communities without sidewalks are stricken from the show list.

The old adage has always been true: the customer is king. There are no cases of lawsuits against real estate agents for selling a home to a buyer after the buyer discovered there were no sidewalks.

This is the fourth article in a series on Windermere and community planning in North Bethesda.

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