Sometimes residents of northern College Park ask what NCPCA has done. Below is only a partial list of actions NCPCA has taken to benefit the community.
NCPCA requested that the Planning Commission, in its Master Plan of Transportation, not widen Rhode Island Ave., but keep it at only two lanes. This was supported by County Council in its vote on the MPOT.
Each year NCPCA obtains member input on the City budget and presents the City Council with a list of priorities for the neighborhoods. These have included items such as sidewalk repairs, more or replacement trees to improve our neighborhoods, the location of new trash receptacles, improvements to City parks, a city-wide bicycle pedestrian plan, more code enforcement, and better animal control. (See 2010 budget priorities.)
NCPCA supported residents of Autoville/Cherry Hill when they opposed a proposed Chic-Fil-A development in their neighborhood, and asked City Council to also oppose the development. The Chic-Fil-A was not built.
An NCPCA committee worked with a developer on the design of an office building to ensure the design was a good fit with the neighborhood. The office building was not constructed due to economic reasons, but most of the conditions articulated by the committee were approved by the Planning Board.
NCPCA established a Variance Committee to quickly review variance requests in our area and recommend action to take to preserve our neighborhoods.
When a developer proposed building townhouses on the Endleman property (along the CSX tracks south of Lackwanna St.), NCPCA wrote to City Council and opposed this, stating that the property should not be developed as anything other the than single family detached homes allowed by its zoning. The project did not proceed.
Before the IHOP or Hampton Inn were built, NCPCA invited the developer to attend its meeting and discuss his plans for the site, which had been vacant.
NCPCA asked the State Highway Administration to correct the traffic signal at the head of Edgewood Rd. and where the beltway ramp ends on US 1. SHA listened to our concerns, and while the traffic signal was not fixed immediately, it was corrected in a later year.
NCPCA asked the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation to modify their plans to build an unemployment center in Hollywood Shopping Center. They changed the building’s siting and accommodated NCPCA’s requests for changed lighting and a sidewalk connection.