White Flint team goes directly to residents to add them to the lobbying corps

By Miranda S. Spivack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 29, 2009

Seven developers eager to remake the jumbled 420 acres around the White Flint Metro station in Montgomery County have flipped their usual script for winning the hearts and minds of politicians and residents.

Rather than relying on secretive development lawyers and their hard-to-understand jargon, the companies have joined together as the White Flint Partnership and meshed traditional shoe leather political organizing with 21st-century technology.

They have a Web site; a friendly slogan: "Building a new sense of community;" an e-mail group list; a Facebook page; a Twitter account; a blog; and Web site "news flashes."

Although groundbreaking for major redevelopment in White Flint is several years away, the political spadework needs to be done now. The County Council, which will have the last word on many of the details, has begun to review the proposed White Flint Sector Plan, which would remake an area of mostly strip shopping centers, car dealers and fast-food restaurants. The complex document, likely to be inked next year, will govern decades of development that could lure thousands of new residents and commuters.

The partnership is lobbying the council to adjust key elements of the plan, devised by the county's Planning Board. In particular, they want to speed up redoing the roads to make them pedestrian-friendly, an expensive project that needs widespread political support.

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