Greenbelt News Review

Kravitz Counterattacks in Zoning Controversy

By Russ Greenbaum

The local controversy over the commercial zoning of the Triangle, or the "Battle of the Shopping Centers," grew in pitch this week as both sides looked toward the County Commissioners' zoning hearing on February 21.

Zoning Opposed By Local Group

A group of local residents headed by Gordon Allen, 14-X Ridge Road, and Eugene Husik, 9-E. Ridge, have announced plans to organize a car caravan to permit Greenbelt citizens to indicate their opposition to the proposed commercial zoning of the Triangle at the County Commissioners Zoning hearing on February 21.

A meeting has been called for next Monday in the Co-op Hospitality Room at 8 p.m. to make plans for the car caravan and to draw up a statement of purpose.

The group is opposed to utilizing the Triangle for a regional shopping center on the grounds that it would violate the original concept of Greenbelt as a planned community and would create difficult traffic problems.

"In view of the existence of the Beltway Plaza shopping center," Husik declared, "we don't see the need of a second large shopping center, which will destroy Greenbelt's charm as a community of individually owned homes surrounded by greenery."

The Morris I. Kravitz Company, which has requested commercial zoning for the 57-acre Triangle in order to erect a 50-store regional shopping center featuring a large Korvette's discount store, has taken its case to the residents of Greenbelt in a full page ad in this week's issue of the NEWS REVIEW. Previous full page ads have been placed in the NEWS REVIEW by Sidney J. Brown, developer of the newly opened Beltway Plaza shopping center, urging that the commercial zoning be denied and that the city adhere to its original concept of a planned community.

Meanwhile, a local group is forming itself to organize a car caravan to appear at the county zoning hearing and make a formal protest against the commercial zoning request. The group has scheduled a meeting Monday night in the Co-Op Hospitality Room to make its plans.

ADDED TAX REVENUE

The Kravitz ad stresses that its proposed shopping center, which it has named Greenbelt Plaza, will provide 1500 new jobs in the area and pay annual taxes to the city at the rate of about $100,000 a year without requiring any services in return.

The ad announces that in addition to Korvette's the initial group of stores will include J. C. Penney's, Woolworth's, and a Hot Shoppe restaurant.

M. A. Powell, vice president of the Kravitz Company, told the NEWS REVIEW that ground will be broken for the Korvette's store no later than 90 days after commercial zoning has been approved and that it will open for Easter, 1963. Construction of the other stores will follow along at intervals. Powell revealed that the Korvette's Store will have a major furniture department comprising about 40,000 square feet and a large food department taking up about 30,000 square feet.

The entire store, which will be two stories in part, will be 692 feet long and 192 feet deep. The largest Korvette's store yet built, it will be the first of four to come to the area. The J. C. Penney store, he said, will be about 150,000 feet, or as large as the suburban branch department stores in the area.

"In addition," Powell declared, "I feel confident that I can get a major department store branch, which will be larger than either store. In fact, we have already begun negotiations. When the center is completed, it will be the second largest of the ten centers we have built to date."

BROWN OPPOSED

Brown of Beltway Plaza previously announced that he has been negotiating with major department stores including the Hecht Company, to come into his center. He also reported that he had been sent a lease by the Hot Shoppes and that J. C. Penney had expressed an interest, but that negotiations were suspended when plans for the other shopping center were announced.

Brown claims that the Triangle is a poor place for a shopping center because of limited access and the potential traffic hazard and that it will prevent either center from becoming a large regional center. Powell has brushed aside these arguments, declaring that Korvette's will definitely draw enough stores to make his center a regional one and that the State Roads Commission is certain to solve any traffic problem that may develop.