Staff editorial: A questionable council

The College Park City Council has gotten off to a rough start in 2012: The council may feature a few new faces after last year's election, but the body's voting patterns seem to make even less sense. After passing critical legislation last year to ban the placement of lawn furniture on rooftops, the council has moved on to actual matters, such as voicing its support for same-sex marriage.

That's a step in the right direction — the council should surely voice its opinion on important state matters, right? But when it comes to real issues in its own backyard, the council has struggled to maintain a consistent stance on a wide range of issues, especially on mixed-use developments featuring high-end grocery stores.

Last month, the council voted to oppose rezoning a small part of a 37-acre parcel of land in the southern edge of the city. The site — a wooded area along Route 1 about half a mile south of downtown College Park — is the location of a planned development featuring 900 housing units, a Whole Foods market and other retail options. Council members cited traffic concerns in voting 6-2 against the project, despite approval by University Park and Riverdale Park officials.

But during this week's meeting, the council took steps to entice a different mixed-use development featuring Harris Teeter, a high-end grocery store, in downtown College Park. Owners of the College Park Shopping Center — which features Chipotle, Applebee's and other stores and restaurants — have expressed interest in redeveloping the site to feature high-density housing above ground-level retail space. The council jumped on the idea, and asked for an inclusion in the bill that would allow the theoretical grocery store to sell wine and beer — typically not allowed in the state.

This comes after the council's ardent opposition to redeveloping the Maryland Book Exchange site, which would feature about 1,000 student beds and ground floor retail space.

Why does the city council support redeveloping the College Park Shopping Center, which is perhaps years from breaking ground, when other developments — the Whole Foods project, the Maryland Book Exchange site — seem imminent?

The council opposed the Whole Foods development because of traffic concerns, and opposed the Book Exchange redevelopment because of the influx of student residents it would bring to the area, but this proposed project supported by council members would result in both of these problems.

As this editorial board sees it, the only meaningful difference between the three proposals is location: The plan supported by council members is on the western side of Route 1 — away from houses in Old Town and the residents who seemingly cling to the idea of quiet neighborhoods in a streetcar suburb. Either that, or council members just really like Harris Teeter.

Either way, it's hard not to question the council's efficacy: Opposing inevitable projects and supporting unlikely developments are not the marks of an effective local government. Here's to the next two years.