Pulte: Clarksburg Businesses Lose $13 Million a Year Under County Plan

Clarksburg businesses stand to lose $13 million a year if plans to reduce the number of homes it can build goes through, Pulte Homes executives claim. 

The homebuilder issued a statement Thursday. Pulte was already discontented with the Montgomery County Planning Board’s proposed changes to Clarksburg’s Master Plan—which would reduce the number of homes Pulte wanted to build in the Ten Mile Creek watershed from 1,000 to 215. 

Citing a report from a real estate advisor, the reduction in the number of homes would slash the potential for retail spending to about $3.5 million—$13 million less than what the full Pulte plan would bring, Pulte claims.

“In a community like Clarksburg that is already desperate for successful retail services, it is hard to reconcile how planning staff justifies this outcome,” said Lewis Birnbaum, president of Pulte’s Mid-Atlantic Division, in the emailed statement. 

For Clarksburg residents have long complained of clogged roads and the dearth of retail. Shopping usually means having to make a trip to Germantown or elsewhere.

Developers were once ambivalent building the Harris Teeter in Clarksburg out of fear the proposed Germantown Wegmans would siphon too many Clarksburg shoppers. 

But Clarksburg is on the county’s radar. Last fall the Montgomery County Council asked county planners to review Clarksburg’s Master Plan in order to balance economic development concerns with concerns about the environmental impact that such development would bring. 

Upcounty civic groups and environmentalists say the county’s land use plan does not go far enough to protect the Ten Mile Creek watershed.

The Save the Ten Mile Creek coalition rallied outside planning headquarters in Silver Spring on Thursday. Montgomery County Councilman Marc Elrich gave a speech at the rally, WUSA9 reports.

The coalition, with the backing of the Audubon Naturalist Society, has submitted its own analysis to the county.