Robert Tennenbaum, 72, not only lives in Wilde Lake, he helped design it as the Chief Planner & Architect for Columbia. A job posted on a bulletin board brought him to Washington and the Year 2000 Plan ultimately brought him, Morton Hoppenfeld and William E. Finley to Jim Rouse. Tennenbaum recalls the day when he Morton Hoppenfeld took him on the drive that would change the course of his career.
“So we're driving up 29, it was a two lane road. We get up to about 29 and Route 32, the old Route 32, and he said okay. He says okay look both sides until I say stop. So I looked at both sides, I see trees and fields, some stuff growing like corn and grass areas with cows and all very rural, very nice. Hilly land and oh there's a small subdivision, oh there's another subdivision. Then he said okay you can stop, when we got to 108, right up the road. He said, Finley and I are working with the Rouse Company, we're going to plan a new city here, would you join us? I said okay.”
Tennenbaum says one of the big problems in Columbia has to do with the affordable housing. He believes its a good idea, but the management and maintenance of some of the properties has become lax over the years.
"It's the people that come from the outside, from the inner city of Baltimore that come down and causes problems. Long Reach is a prime example of this. Too many section eights in one area, now that's a major problem that Howard County has not addressed.”
The issue of design review came up a lot in our interview. Tennenbaum comments that its a crucial step in the development process, one that has been overlooked in the past and has been the central focus of public planning meetings between the Howard County council, Columbia residents and General Growth Properties over the new 30 year master plan.
“Owen Brown was ruined when the village center was changed. It was a very nice village center. Giant owns it, and then when Giant wanted to increase the size of the supermarket, it totally screwed it up.
Tennenbaum says the Rouse Company, at least of the last 15 years should have changed their name to the bottom line company. When asked about General Growth Properties and phases, he explains that phases actually hinder development because the developers can't for see the future and need the flexibility to change their plans with the times. He believes the new GGP plan needs to be approved without phases.
Tennenbaum says that before Rouse Company sold to GGP, it was run by a bunch of MBA bottom liners.
“They [Rouse Company] totally ignored the community. And even the press didn't have the guts to go and say what are those bulldozers doing here? You never knew what was going to happen until the bulldozers came on the site and started scraping the land."
Tennenbaum is disappointed by some of Rouse Company's development decisions, including the gated apartments build around the mall. He says the four foot fence around the apartments is a joke, a marketing ploy and that it wasn't built with Columbia's principles in mind.
Though Tennenbaum left Rouse Company in the early seventies, he continues to fight to maintain Symphony Woods, village centers and the vision that Jim Rouse had for the city.
"The land sales guy, the guy who's trying to sell the land and create income for the Rouse Company would go to the top people and say the architects are causing problems. The top guys would say f--- em, you know, sell the land we need the money. That's what's been happening over the years.”
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