Glenmont Landfill Plans Move Forward
A public hearing for Silver Spring residents to voice opinions about the Glenmont Landfill & Dump project is scheduled for April at the site of the proposed improvement to 12331 Georgia Avenue, otherwise known as the Glenmont Shopping Center.
While the 12 property owners of the center have endured a history of competing interests and friction, they are unanimous on one point: none are willing to pick up the mounds of trash accumulating in the parking lot at the intersection of Layhill Road and Georgia Ave. They organized as Glenmont Shopping Center LLP to pursue the landfill project, “and bury the problem once and for all,” a group spokesperson told The Montgonion.
Trash piles, discarded car parts, and empty beer bottles and pre-roll tubes have been accumulating at the Glenmont Shopping Center for over a year. Comparing current photos of the site to Google Earth images and a Montgonion photographer’s images, the last time the site was clear of trash was late 2023.
The last image showing the site well maintained was recorded in May 2023
Natali Fani-González, Councilmember for District 6 which includes Glenmont, likens the situation to a domestic standoff. “You know when the kitchen trash is full, but everyone just keeps cramming in more and hoping someone else will deal with it, and then the trash overflows and a half-full yogurt container hits the floor and splashes the baseboard, and nobody deals with that either, waiting for their spouse or kids to wipe it up, and five months later the dried yogurt is still there? It’s like that,” she said.
Despite police and county vehicles being parked in the lot daily, and often for extended periods of time, none of the municipal employees have been able to stop the illegal dumping, convince shopping center owners to clean it, or engage public maintenance to address the eyesore. That’s why covering it makes sense, officials say.
"At some point you realize it would be easier to paint over the dried yogurt than to scrape it off," Gonzalez told The Montgonion.
The public hearing is scheduled for April 31 at 6pm in the Glenmont Shopping Center and will be hosted by Story Cannabis.
