Good morning Madam Chairperson and Members of the Board.
My name is Stan Walker, and I live in Bowie. I have lived in Prince George's County for all of my life. My first 24 years in Hyattsville and the last 41 years in Bowie.
I graduated from University of Maryland with a degree in Civil Engineering and worked for the U.S. Coast Guard for 42 years before retiring in 2013.
I am here to speak in opposition to the Marketplace Apartments. I would like to indicate that:
1) The Bowie City Planning Director, Mr. Joe Meinert submitted his detailed report...recommending against the proposed project for approximately 300 apartments.
2) The Bowie City Planning Board voted unanimously (7-0) AGAINST the proposal (agreeing with the 150-200 Bowie residents speaking against it)
3) Unfortunately, the Bowie City Council, in a split vote, voted in favor for the proposal. There was approximately 150 Bowie residents in attendance speaking against the proposal.
First of all, I would like to "complement" the developer of the new Marketplace Shopping Center on its stores. However, the addition of a 3 to 4 story 225 apartment unit building is absolutely detrimental to the property and the surrounding single family homes, and the City of Bowie in general.
The developer's Traffic Study is extremely flawed. It was done before the Shopping Center completed any of the stores. Now that some, but not all, of the stores are operational...the parking lot in front of the stores is almost at full capacity.
Once all of the stores are operational the shoppers will also need to use the parking lot in the rear of the stores. If the apartments are built, the residents will end up parking on the nearby residential streets causing problems.
At the present time, the access to the Shopping Center is extremely congested on Rt. 450 and Superior Lane and the other streets. (Versus the developer's traffic study that was done before shoppers were using the stores)
*Access in and out of the shopping center is not adequate, much less if the apartments are built.
Kids playing in front of the proposed apartments would be extremely dangerous with tractor trailers and trucks making frequent deliveries.
The effect of a high density apartment building adjacent to the single family home neighborhood is extremely detrimental to the property values of those homes.
The propose high density apartment building is also totally incompatible with the single family neighborhood and would adversely affect the character of Bowie and the density of Bowie .