How will the Langley Park Sector Plan affect local businesses?

By Andres Gonzalez and Pareesha Narang

It could be the salsa music that grabs your attention as you walk up the stairs to the entrance, the attention given to the customers, the smell of freshly-baked bread and pasteles, or the familiar sounds of a passionate sportscaster screaming gol! in the televised soccer game. Whatever the attraction may be, La Union Mall has certainly succeeded at recreating a sense of community thousands of miles away from the place many Langley Park residents first called home.

Named after a district of El Salvador, La Union is more than just another retail space for the majority foreign-born population of Langley Park. Many locals frequent the mall to catch up with the latest telenovela episode, reminisce about their families back home, and get a piece of what they left behind in search of a better future.

If you visit La Chapina bakery in the lower level of the mall, you will likely be greeted in Spanish by the employees and by the captivating smells of the Central American delicacies. On a recent day, a customer spoke in both Spanish and English about a Honduran pastry he was looking for, which led to conversation about friends and relatives.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=sDr3D1Ds0ow]
“My country, La Honduras,” the customer said, nostalgically.

Despite the strong community that La Union has maintained for years, a realty sign above the mall casts a shadow of uncertainty over its future. Some predict that many more sale signs will be creeping up around Langley Park businesses.

The reason: A new Prince George’s County land use plan that seeks to capitalize on state plans to locate a transit center and two stops on the proposed Purple Line light-rail system in the mile-square unincorporated community just north of Washington D.C.

The sector plan calls for mix-used buildings – residential units atop one floor of commercial spaces. It encourages high-density population centers near the central streets and the two stops along University Blvd. — one at the intersection of Riggs Road and the other at New Hampshire Avenue. La Union Mall, 1401 University Blvd. E, is in the heart of the targeted area.

La Chapina bakery, which specializes in Guatemalan pastries, is owned by Jorge Sactic-Espana and his wife Dora, who came to the U.S. from Guatemala 26 years ago. Jorge’s knowledge of the area and reputation for sage advice have made him an influential member of the Latino business community.

He said he and other small business owners worry that redevelopment will drive up rents and make them unaffordable for small business operators like himself. Currently, Langley Park businesses pay around $10 to $20 for a square foot, he said. He fears that business owners will have to pay up to $50 for a square foot after developers and property owners renovate the business buildings.

“People are barely surviving right now, and if you are charging $50 for rent, you are just killing the people,” Sactic-Espana said.

The plan does not explicitly call for the displacement of residents or businesses. Developers will be required to work closely with property owners and the community in order to retain many of the current business owners, according to Henry Zhang, project manager for the Prince George’s County Planning Department. The plan also recommends the creation of an open-air market place with an international feel to maintain the cultural variety of Langley Park businesses.

Sactic-Espana likes the open market idea but said it is not enough.

“[The market] is a good idea; from a cultural side it’s good. The only concern is that if minorities go away, who is going to work the market?” he said. “We have been supporting the economy for so long, and it is not fair that out of the sudden they are doing this plan to serve the big corporations.”

Sactic-Espana said the county did not do enough to get input from Latino business owners. Although county officials say they held 50 public meetings, many with interpreters, he was not aware of more than five, making it even harder for him to feel he was a part of the planning process.

He said he has attended the planning meetings because he wants the business community to be represented. Affordability and displacement have been among the chief concerns he has raised in the meetings.

Yet, he acknowledges that the majority of business owners are not even aware what the sector plan entails. He said the sessions were not designed to gather community input.

“I think that we knew that since the first minute that we met with [the planning commissioners], [the plan] was a done deal. It’s just a matter of when they are going to start,” he said.

In addition, many small business owners do not speak English as a first language, making it difficult for them to understand the sector plan, even with translators.

Businesses in Langley Park have services targeted to very specific niches. La Union Mall has bakeries, restaurants, beauty shops, soccer stores, and other establishments designed to respond to the needs and interests of the immigrant population.

Owners work from opening until closing, making it difficult to attend meetings or get involved in other activities that are not directly related to running their businesses.

Prince George’s County Councilman Will Campos, whose district includes Langley Park, said he felt that the business community was not doing a good job of reaching out to him.

“If I don’t know that there’s a business community, I can’t reach out to them. I need to know their concerns,” Campos said.

He said county officials did a sufficient job of addressing community concerns. The plan was generated by Prince George’s County and the Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission and approved in November. The next step is to design the zoning mechanism for putting the plan into action.

“We have met countless times to modify the sector plan to promote housing affordability, make sure that the plan responds to the gentrification concerns. We modified the plan based on those meetings,” Campos said.

Robert Hall, property manager of the Langley Park Plaza, said that the plan is responsive to the needs of the businesses. He said has been actively involved in shaping the sector plan by raising his concerns in numerous meetings with the planning commission.

“I really believe in the sector plan because it will bring more activity to the area,” Hall said. ”More people will be coming to our businesses.”

But Jorge and Dora Sactic-Espana aren’t betting on it.

“We are trying to open another business elsewhere…so in case this one closes, we have the other one,” Dora Sactic-Espana said.

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Posted by admin on May 29 2010. Filed under Local News, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry