the third place

Building community one bike ride at a time

Posted by & filed under Planning.

By Montgomery Planning Staff

Montgomery Planning is proud to have a team of planners who reflect Montgomery County’s rich multiculturism. As part of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we are highlighting some of our planners working to craft a better future for a diverse Montgomery County.

Almost every Friday, Mario Emanuel Perez and his two children set off for a 30-minute bike ride to their Silver Spring elementary school, picking up dozens of other students and parents along the way.

Perez, who goes by “Ema,” organizes the weekly “bike bus” to encourage people of all ages to ride. The cycling trips, he said, benefit their health, take traffic off the road, and shorten the school’s car drop-off line. Meanwhile, he … Continue reading

Planning for the storm: Solutions for more resilient communities

Posted by & filed under Planning.

By Montgomery Planning staff

Flooding is a growing threat to Montgomery County due to severe storms caused by climate change. Whether it’s damaging homes, disrupting traffic, or harming local ecosystems, the impacts of flooding are real and intensifying.

As the agency responsible for land use and planning for the future, we’re uniquely positioned to help reduce flood risks and build a more resilient county. Our approach is rooted in smart growth, environmental stewardship, and interagency collaboration.

Understanding the problem

Flooding happens when rainfall overwhelms the land’s ability to absorb water and the capacity of natural and built drainage systems like streams, wetlands, and storm drains. In Montgomery County, many neighborhoods were built before modern stormwater standards existed, leaving them … Continue reading

The status quo is no longer an option

Posted by & filed under Planning.

By Montgomery Planning Board Chair Artie Harris and Montgomery Planning Director Jason K. Sartori

Note to the reader: this content was originally published in the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County, MD 2025 Journal

Montgomery County is a great place to live, work, play, and learn. Like many communities nationwide, though, our status quo is no longer working when it comes to housing. Currently, the county has over 1 million residents and is expected to add 200,000 more over the next 25 years, but we are not building housing fast enough to keep up with this growth. As prices and rents have skyrocketed in recent years due to a lack of supply and other real estate market forces, current … Continue reading

Cooling Montgomery County’s corridors

Posted by & filed under Planning.

By Montgomery Planning Staff

Residents who walk, ride bikes, and wait for buses along busy roads in the Washington, DC region more often feel the unhealthy effects of traffic-related air pollution and blistering summer days.

Asphalt roads and parking lots, as well as concrete sidewalks, absorb the sun, creating “heat islands” with higher temperatures. A 2022 heat mapping study of Montgomery County found that these areas reached up to ten degrees hotter than rural areas.

As Montgomery Planning Environmental Planner Steve Findley explained: “Obviously, anybody who is outside a vehicle—anybody who is walking, biking or rolling along the corridor or waiting for transit—is going to be exposed to these heat island impacts.”

This seemingly complex problem has a simple … Continue reading

Answers to the community’s questions about the University Boulevard Corridor Plan

Posted by & filed under Planning.

By Montgomery Planning Staff

Community engagement is a cornerstone of the planning process. During the process for the University Boulevard Corridor Plan (UBC), we heard about the concerns and aspirations for the plan area from community members, businesses, and other key stakeholders.

During the outreach process, it was important for us to meet this community where they were. Through community meetings, conversations, mailings, door knocking, and more, we were able to get a sense for a vision that the community wanted to see. This feedback directly inspired the draft recommendations that are currently being reviewed by the Montgomery County Planning Board. View a complete list of our engagement efforts.

Part of the Planning Board’s review included a public hearing … Continue reading

Herstory: Protecting Montgomery County’s forests

Posted by & filed under Planning.

Kara Farthing still remembers her Virginia Tech forestry professor’s advice: Don’t get stuck as the “data fairy.”

During group work in the field, the professor said, female students needed to avoid always ending up as the designated note taker, even if they had the neatest handwriting. Just like their male counterparts, Farthing was told, female students needed to learn to use the forestry equipment, measure trees, and “actually get your hands dirty.”

“It tended to be the woman in the group taking the notes while the guys were out doing something,” Farthing said. The professor “would take the notebook away and hand it to one of the guys, saying to us, ‘You need to be out there. You need … Continue reading

Want to help create a thriving county? Check out the Community Planning Academy

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By Bridget Broullire and Khalid Afzal

Planning influences every part of life in Montgomery County—from where we live, work and spend our leisure time to how we move and connect with our neighbors. Community voices are essential to that journey, but planning processes can often feel opaque or complex, even when residents are deeply invested in a proposed development or the recommendations of a neighborhood master plan.

Enter the Community Planning Academy.

Montgomery Planning believes every resident should be able to meaningfully and effectively contribute to decisions that affect them. It’s why every plan and policy we draft goes through a comprehensive community engagement process, and it’s why the Montgomery Planning Board and the Montgomery County Council offer multiple … Continue reading

Herstory: Q&A with Planning Board Vice Chair Mitra Pedoeem

Posted by & filed under Planning.

In the 1970s, when girls in Iran were largely deemed unworthy of a college education, Mitra Pedoeem became the only woman in a class of 60 students at the University of Tehran’s Civil Engineering College.

While Pedoeem was on vacation in the United States, the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran. Her family told her it wasn’t safe to return home. She hasn’t been back since.

Growing up in Iran – and finding a new home in the United States – helped forge a resolve that Pedoeem says has served her well.

After retiring as the deputy director of Montgomery Parks in 2018, and then as the director of the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services (DPS) in 2022, … Continue reading

A special tree grows, again, in Twinbrook

Posted by & filed under Planning.

By James Hedrick, Commissioner, The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC)

Among the many agenda items that come before the Montgomery County Planning Board, some projects will stick with you. On February 22, 2024, the Planning Board held a hearing regarding an apartment complex in Twinbrook: 210-plus units, 25% subsidized, a stone’s throw from a Metro station. All good. Nothing too unusual.

Except for one thing. A crabapple tree.

Specifically, the National Champion Southern Crabapple (Malus angustifolia).

The tree immediately reminded me of the Truffula tree from Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax.”  Although Montgomery County does not have an orange mustachioed gremlin voiced by Bob Holt (or Danny DeVito, if you prefer the 2012 version) to speak for … Continue reading

Answers to questions (and misconceptions) about Attainable Housing Strategies

Posted by & filed under Planning.

By Artie Harris and Jason K. Sartori

This blog is also published in Greater Greater Washington as a guest opinion column.

Over the past three years, Montgomery Planning and the Montgomery County Planning Board have heard a lot of passion from people in Montgomery County who are eager to find solutions to the county’s housing crisis. We also heard a lot of misconceptions regarding the Planning Board’s recommendations to relax single-family zoning, also known as Attainable Housing Strategies. That’s why we’re sharing these frequently asked questions about them.

Back in June, the Planning Board issued its Attainable Housing Strategies (AHS) recommendations, which would give property owners more choices in the types of structures they can build on their properties in … Continue reading