eSubscription - County's Digital Communication Services

Tenant Protection Act passes; Purple Line update

Montgomery County Maryland sent this bulletin at 07/18/2024 04:40 PM EDT

Dear Friends,

There are two pieces of great news to share as everyone works to stay cool: Our Tenant Protection and Notification Act passed Tuesday at the Council, and Purple Line summer construction in our area remains progressing on track for the summer shutdown work to be complete by the end of August.

If you have spare time, please consider volunteering with a community nonprofit in our county to support neighbors in need. A recent electrical fire at Interfaith Works’ women’s shelter displaced 34 residents and 16 staff. Here are details on how to help them.

As always, if there is any way our office can be of assistance, please email me Councilmember.Stewart@montgomerycountymd.gov or call 240-777-7968.

Sincerely,

Council Vice President Kate Stewart

(she, her) why pronouns

Tenant Protection and Notification Act passes

The Arrive fire that took the life of Melanie Diaz and the power outage at The Grand last summer spurred our work on the Tenant Protection and Notification Act that passed this week. These kinds of dangerous incidents, and others my office looked into at the prompting of residents around the County, can be avoided by improving communication and emergency planning in multifamily rental properties. I listened carefully to the concerns of residents, and I wrote this bill in close collaboration with our County permitting and housing agencies. We can and need to make real strides to protect people where it matters most – in their homes.

This legislation requires:

Residential leases must clearly state whether the building has automatic sprinkler systems, inform tenants of emergency plans, and whether the lease insures tenant possessions in event of loss or damage due to instances such as fire, smoke or water.
24-hour availability of a building representative, and notification to tenants of any disruption of essential services.
Emergency safety plans for each building, proposed by landlords of multifamily dwellings, to be approved by the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services.

I am grateful to my colleagues for their unanimous support of this legislation. We will continue honoring Melanie Diaz’s life with action, and our work to improve residents’ safety and quality of life in their homes in this county continues. Here are my comments on passage of the legislation.

Purple Line progress

Across the Purple Line’s alignment in District 4, we are seeing substantial progress on the summer work laying tracks in the ground and interconnecting with the Silver Spring Red Line platform expected to be completed by the end of August. We especially want to thank Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman and her team for joining me, local residents and business owners, and Purple Line staff on June 28th for a walk along portions of the alignment most affected by construction. The focus her presence has brought is already leading to improvements to pedestrian safety and business access in our area, and our work continues.

VP Stewart and Comptroller Lierman walking in Long Branch

We asked the Purple Line staff to provide us an update on their work since our walk in response to resident concerns we highlighted during the walk and received the following:

“On June 28, the Purple Line team was pleased to host a site walk and meet community members along the way, while providing a tour to Comptroller Lierman, Council Vice President Stewart, and other community leaders. We reviewed the tremendous progress of the construction work, and also took feedback from the community members.

The site walk included a focus on traffic impacts near the Long Branch Community Center. The Purple Line has coordinated directly with the community center and swim team to help inform users of the recent traffic patterns. Resources created by the Purple Line and provided to the community center include:

Variable road message boards directing visitors to LBCC for the final swim meet.
A handout for the community center and swim team to provide summer visitors with current road construction and detour information.

The Purple Line Outreach team will continue to closely communicate with Long Branch Community Center on what to expect with regard to construction over the coming months. These outreach efforts will include information and resources about a new entrance to the Long Branch Community Center, aligned with the Barron Street intersection.

The site walk group also reviewed Bonifant Street and met with area businesses and residents. Based on feedback, Purple Line crews improved construction site housekeeping including:

Removing gravel and unused equipment and widening pedestrian walkway areas.
Clearing obstructions along the sidewalk (previously cut parking meter poles which were “stubbed” were removed or ground down to reduce tripping hazards).
Additionally, the Purple Line team has ordered and scheduled installation of new, screened fencing around the Silver Spring Library to replace some damaged screen/fencing.
“Bonifant – Open for Business” banners are on order and scheduled to be installed on fencing at corner of Bonifant and Fenton (two banners, 24ft by 8ft and 51ft by 8ft).

The Purple Line is working to expedite work on Bonifant in order to provide the “final configuration” sidewalk on the North side of the street. The Construction team is currently working on the schedule for this, and our Outreach team will communicate and coordinate with businesses and residents when more detail is available. Construction note: Duct bank and drainage work are two of the first construction activities which must be placed before the sidewalk can be finalized.

From all of us at the Purple Line, thank you for your patience and support as we work to complete the new alignment as quickly as possible, with safety as our top priority. You can always reach our Outreach team at outreach@purplelinemd.com. We encourage businesses and residents to find more information about the project, summer detours and more by subscribing to alerts at www.purplelinemd.com.”

--Doran Bosso, CEO, Purple Line Transit Partners

VP Stewart and Comptroller Lierman listen to residents of The Bonifant with Purple Line staff

WMATA recently adjusted their shuttle bus service to speed customers from Silver Spring and Forest Glen to Fort Totten directly, while maintaining other routes including the Downtown Express to Metro Center. The Takoma Metrorail station also reopened at the start of this month. We also understand that Montgomery County Police have been ticketing motorists parked in or violating the bus only lanes, including in the Downtown Silver Spring area to help keep our region moving.

Elsewhere in Silver Spring, our office worked with Montgomery County Department of Transportation to ensure that seniors’ mobility was not reduced during construction–we requested and the department delivered paid long term parking for Easterseals vehicles near their facility near the Spring St bridge closure.

At Jones Bridge and Jones Mill Rd, traffic has been switched to the opposite side of Jones Mill Rd, new sidewalks opened, and the well-used Rock Creek Trail beneath the bridge reopened to pedestrians and cyclists.

Lastly, I recently had the exciting chance to see the just-delivered actual Purple Line light rail vehicles–this is a big milestone for the project, and the state-of-the-art trains will deliver a world-class transit experience. They offer an incredible vision into the future of transit in our region as we continue working to connect people to jobs & opportunity. My staff and I continue to work with state and local partners to reduce disruption to residents.

VP Stewart, Del. Charkoudian, and friends with the Purple Line vehicle in the background

VP Stewart on a Purple Line light rail vehicle

Seal Office of Councilmember Kate Stewart
100 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD 20850
Email: Councilmember.Stewart@montgomerycountymd.gov
Phone: 240-777-7968
Website: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Stewart/

SUBSCRIBER SERVICES:

Manage your subscriber preferences. If you do not want to receive this email newsletter and all other Montgomery County email newsletters Unsubscribe. Subscriber Help

This email was sent to you using GovDelivery, on behalf of: Montgomery County, Maryland Government. As a subscriber, you agree that we may contact you by email and use the information you submit as described in the Montgomery County Privacy Policy.