Planning

Growing Interest: Thrive 2050 Planning Brings Renewed Zest for Connecting People with Local Agriculture, Agritourism

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Do you know where your food is grown or how it is produced? In our increasingly global and digital society, it is possible to consume a variety of foods without considering typical growing seasons or cost of production – all while having everything from almonds to zucchini effortlessly delivered to our doorsteps. This convenience – which many of us enjoy regularly due to our busy schedules – comes with a cost of separating ourselves from the story behind our food. In urban and urbanizing areas, this separation can be even more profound as we do not regularly interact with farming or farmland.

While Montgomery County is increasingly urban, it also has a tremendous resource to connect residents with farming … Continue reading

Today’s Youth: Helping Us Build a Better Future

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Work session with county kids inspires staff, proves the next generation Is a key planning resource

By Kendra Hyson and Jessica McVary

Wouldn’t it be great if our plan for the future was created with input from all the generations of people who will live in our county in the next 30 years? We are driving change for the next generation, but are we including today’s kids in conversations about the future and implementing their ideas in a meaningful way? The youth are our future.  Their voices should be heard.

With the progression of social media and other online platforms, today’s kids have strong technical skills and increased awareness of technology and other issues important to our future. Their … Continue reading

Public Places 101: Thirty years from today

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By Natasha Fahim, Tsaiquan Gatling and Atul Sharma

How to design unique places Montgomery County residents will love for generations

Public places are the heart of any thriving community. It’s where we spend time with our family, meet our friends, and experience new things. Without great public places, a community lacks a sense of identity and pride. It is becoming more important that we emphasize creating successful public places, in order to support our communities, as the growth of technology enables many social activities to move from the community onto the internet.

Thrive Montgomery 2050 is a collective community effort to figure out – together – how Montgomery County can be a great community over the next 30 years. … Continue reading

Time Traveling with the Youth

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Young voices on the role of creativity and planning for the future of Montgomery County

Both creativity and planning are needed for visionary efforts. Thrive Montgomery 2050, which will create a vision for future growth in the county over the next 30 years, is one such effort Montgomery Planning is undertaking.

Creativity allows us to travel forward in time to imagine what the future could look like. It gives shape and vision to our thoughts and ideas. Planning enables us to realize our dreams. Through careful planning, we can create the foundations upon which our creative ideas can come to life.

Montgomery Planning is collaborating with groups that have creative ideas—big and small—about the future of our county. Since … Continue reading

How to Talk Like a Transportation Planner (or at least fake it well!)

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By Katie Mencarini and David Anspacher

Believe it or not, if you’re reading this, you are probably an expert on Montgomery County transportation! Whether you drive to work, ride on a commuter bus, walk to the dry cleaners or bike to school, you know what is and isn’t working, and you have ideas about how to improve the situation. What you might not know is how to communicate those ideas effectively to a transportation planner. We can help. Read on as we cover some of the most common transportation planning terms and tell why they matter.

Most trips people make aren’t for pleasure; they are to get to places. Accessibility is the main way transportation planners describe how many … Continue reading

Moving Beyond the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards

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A walk around Silver Spring reveals the need to make streets and sidewalks easier to navigate for people with mobility challenges

What if you had to experience a mobility challenge? Maybe you suddenly become injured and must use crutches or a cane or perhaps you have a life-long mobility challenge where rolling is the only option instead of walking. If that happens, you may start to notice that those sidewalks and crossings you took for granted are not so accessible. Places you could comfortably travel to are now a challenge or even impossible to reach.

You might be familiar with the Standards for Accessible Design, made enforceable by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), that are required for all … Continue reading

Keep Montgomery Thriving

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Thrive Week kicked off Thrive Montgomery 2050 with five events held over five days, asking community members how they imagine the future of the county

 

What does your future look like? And how does the community where you live, work and play support your vision for tomorrow?

Continuing social, environmental, technological, demographic and economic changes over the next few decades necessitate revisions to Montgomery County’s guiding framework for growth, called the General Plan.

As Montgomery Planning begins work on this plan update, we’re asking for the community’s help to ensure that the county remains a vibrant, verdant and welcoming place — with an innovative economy — where all can thrive. The first stage of this effort to update … Continue reading

Montgomery Planning Shares Creative Visions in San Francisco

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Five sessions at the American Planning Association’s national conference highlight county plans for parks, bikes, traffic safety, placemaking and community resilience

“Planning Connects Us” was the theme of the American Planning Association’s national conference, held from April 13 through April 16, 2019 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. At the event, Montgomery Planning staff connected with planners from across the country in discussing shared concerns over equity, placemaking, traffic safety and other hot topics.

We continue to be out front on many important issues, as revealed in our five sessions at the conference. Staff received great feedback from many of the attendees who traveled to the City on the Bay to learn about the planning profession’s latest trends … Continue reading

Small Backyard Houses, Big County Benefits

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By Paul Mortensen and Njillan Sarre

Called backyard cottages or granny flats, accessory dwelling units can help remedy our housing shortage

The Montgomery County Council is in the process of considering changes to the existing laws that allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs). These secondary housing units are located on the same lot as an owner-occupied single-family home. They are significantly smaller than the main house and can be a stand-alone structure in the backyard, a basement apartment, an addition or an apartment over the garage. ADUs go by many names, such as accessory apartments, backyard cottages or granny flats, among others.

Under current law, homeowners in Montgomery County who want to have an ADU face several restrictions. A detached … Continue reading

Schools and Growth, Part Four: Where are all these kids coming from?

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In previous posts, I documented six Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) clusters at risk of entering a development moratorium due to overcrowding. Enrollment in these clusters grew by 4,157 students between 2011 and 2015, yet only 184 of these students are living in the new multifamily residential buildings and townhomes constructed within the clusters during this period. That statistic means that new development was responsible for only about four percent of enrollment growth in these clusters, while the vast majority of the enrollment growth is coming from neighborhood turnover – that is to say, families with children moving into housing previously occupied by families without children.

I can’t say with certainty why these six clusters have experienced such … Continue reading