Dear Wheaton Friends,
As the new Chair of the Wheaton Urban District Advisory
Committee (WUDAC), I’d like to welcome you to the new WUDAC year. Wheaton is a
wonderful community, full of great retail and restaurants, award-winning parks,
a large regional shopping center, and most importantly, a genuine spirit. I’m
proud to call Wheaton my home, and I’m honored to be WUDAC Chair.
As many of you know, Wheaton is in the midst of a
transformation. In just the past year, three large apartment projects have opened,
adding almost 1000 new units to the Wheaton rental market. On the retail side,
the Costco at Wheaton Westfield opened less than 18 months ago. This may be
news to many of you, but the Wheaton Costco is already the 4th
busiest on the entire east coast. The coming years will bring even more change
to Wheaton, particularly with the new town square and the development of Lot
13.
Obviously, there is more to discuss than just redevelopment.
WUDAC’s successful walking tours have shown there are plenty of day-to-day
issues that need to be addressed, on issues related to signage/way-finding, lighting,
trash collection, landscaping, pedestrian safety, sidewalks, and more.
The bottom line is that WUDAC will continue to play an
important advisory role in relaying the community’s wishes to county officials
for all of these redevelopment and revitalization issues. And this is where you
come in. For WUDAC to fulfill its mission,
we need to hear from the community on the issues that are important to you and
Wheaton. There are a number of ways you can do this. First, WUDAC physically
meets on the second Tuesday of every month (except August), starting at 6pm. Our
next meeting is Tuesday, October 14. Every WUDAC agenda includes time for members
of the community to speak.
Alternatively, I invite you to contact me via e-mail at wudac@montgomerycountymd.gov.
Finally, please make sure you continue to follow this blog. I admit that posting has been slow in the past few months, but be assured, we will post important Wheaton developments to this site.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve Wheaton. I
hope to see you at a future WUDAC meeting.
Sincerely,
Devala Janardan
Chair
WUDAC
Chair
WUDAC