- \n
![\"Black](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Georgia-Avenue-circa-1920s-800x534.jpg\" "\\"Georgia")
Georgia Avenue (then Brookeville Avenue) looking south near Silver Spring Avenue. Photo taken June 21, 1917 by Willard R. Ross (1860-1948). From \"Historic Silver Spring\" by Jerry A. McCoy and the Silver Spring Historical Society. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005.<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n![\"Full](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Georiga-Avenue-in-2008-800x534.jpg\" "\\"Georiga")
Georgia Avenue looking south near Silver Spring Avenue\u2014circa 2008.<\/div><\/div><\/li>\n <\/ul>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>Montgomery County is one of the most desirable places to live and work in the United States. However, like many other places in the country, we are facing new and different issues and trends. This includes weak wage and job growth, persistent racial and economic inequities, demographic and cultural shifts, technological innovation, and climate change. Some of these issues have been reinforced, or even created, by our past public and private plans and actions.<\/p>\nAs we finalize the update to the county\u2019s General Plan, Thrive Montgomery 2050<\/a>, it is important that we reexamine the county\u2019s planning history to become a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient community. Let\u2019s take a walk through the county\u2019s past 245 years:<\/p>\n
Montgomery County was primarily a farming community<\/h3>\n
Originally part of Frederick County, Montgomery County became a separate jurisdiction in 1776. It was cultivated as farmland and, despite periods of soil depletion, farming continued to be its main commerce for close to 200 years. According to the 1964 General Plan, in 1961, the chief source of farm income in Montgomery County was from dairy products, while Tobacco was the chief farm product in Prince George\u2019s County.<\/p>\n
The beginning of the county\u2019s suburbanization<\/h3>\n
In the 1930s and 1940s, the county attracted a large group of newcomers from across the country to work in the federal government’s New Deal programs. They settled in the new housing developments in the down-county areas close to Washington, DC. The first suburban subdivisions in Silver Spring and Chevy Chase in the 1920s and 1930s used redlining and racial covenants prohibiting African Americans and other racial and religious groups from purchasing land or homes. A development pattern of segregation in the form of exclusive single-family zoning, unfair banking and lending practices, unequal public investment in schools, parks and other public facilities continued even after the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 to end these practices.<\/p>\n
In 1948, Montgomery County was the first county in the State of Maryland to be granted home rule, which shifted the local political power from the Maryland General Assembly to the county.<\/p>\n
The 1964 General Plan defines a clear vision for the county<\/h3>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/1957-Plan-cover.jpg\")
The cover of the first General Plan for the Maryland-Washington Regional District, which covered only 294 square miles in Montgomery and Prince George\u2019s counties (dark blue area).<\/p><\/div>\n
The region\u2019s post-World War II employment growth spurred a significant subdivision activity in the county during the 1950s and 1960s. The Maryland-Washington Regional District\u2014the official name of the M-NCPPC\u2019s planning jurisdiction at the time\u2014completed the first General Plan in 1957. This included parts of Montgomery and Prince George\u2019s counties.<\/p>\n
It was soon followed by the 1964 General Plan<\/a> on Wedges and Corridors, which covered the entirety of both Montgomery and Prince George\u2019s counties and set the foundation of land use and planning in Montgomery County for the next 50 years. Having acquired the legislative authority to approve all master plans in the county in 1966, the Montgomery County Council approved an update to the Wedges and Corridors Plan in 1969 but kept the basic Wedges and Corridors concept intact. While the Wedges and Corridors Plan was visionary, its implementation was constrained by the tools and mechanisms available at the time. It resulted in a land use pattern dominated by automobile and more than one-third of the county exclusively used for single-family homes.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/1964-Corridor-Cities-from-64-plan.jpg\")
Corridor cities, as imagined by the 1964 Plan, were similar in some ways to the Complete Communities idea in the Thrive Montgomery 2050 Plan.<\/p><\/div>\n
The first Metrorail station opens<\/h3>\n
The 1970s began with the ap\u00adproval of the Metro system; the coordination of planning for Metro; the establishment of Montgomery County\u2019s four Central Business Districts (Bethesda, Friendship Heights, Silver Spring, and Wheaton); the elimination of several major transportation improvements called for in the 1964 General Plan (the Outer Beltway, the Northern Parkway and the extension of Metrorail along Route I-95); adoption of the Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit (MPDU) law; and the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO). During the 1970s the county’s funding priorities went to Metrorail and Metro-related access roads, while numerous other road projects were cancelled or delayed due to two recessions and citizen opposition. In 1978, the first Metrorail station in Montgomery County opened in Silver Spring.<\/p>\n
The building boom of the 1980s<\/h3>\n
The 1980s started with the creation of the Agricultural Reserve, the first of its kind in the country, and the first comprehensive Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management requirements in the county code. In this decade, the county saw the first efforts to revive downtown Silver Spring and the start of the county\u2019s biomedical industry. Recognizing that academic institutions are integral to successful biotech communities, the county created a 288-acre park called Shady Grove Life Sciences Center. The county zoned the land for bio-medical research and development, and donated land and funds in the Life Sciences Center to Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland.<\/p>\n
In 1986, concerned about too much development being approved during the building boom of the 80s, the Montgomery County Council enacted an Annual Growth Policy (AGP) for the County. Since then the Council has used AGP, now called the Growth and Infrastructure Policy, to direct the Planning Board\u2019s administration of the APFO. At the same time, the county established an impact tax structure for Germantown and Eastern Montgomery County, which was expanded to Clarksburg in the 1990s, and to the entire county in 2002. These impact taxes were collected for transportation projects until 2003, when the Council approved a separate development impact tax for schools.<\/p>\n
The revitalization of downtown Silver Spring<\/h3>\n
Planning for the revitalization of downtown Silver Spring started in the 1980s but took off in the 1990s. The 2000 Silver Spring Sector Plan created the blueprint for the revitalization of downtown core into a mixed-use walkable place. It required significant public investment such as the restoration of the Silver Theater, and attracted private development including the Discovery Communications headquarters and other residential and commercial developments. It is a great success story of the 2000s, which established Montgomery County as a leader in mixed use, transit-oriented development.<\/p>\n
The success of Silver Spring in the 2000s was followed by another ambitious public-private partnership to revitalize White Flint in the 2010s. The implementation of Purple Line and a network of bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors starting in the 2020s is another milestone in the county\u2019s evolution from farming to a suburban bedroom community to a more urban and diverse place of more than a million people.<\/p>\n
Planning for the county\u2019s next 50 years<\/h3>\n
Montgomery County is growing more slowly than in past decades, but our population is still projected to increase by about 200,000 people over the next 30 years. Disruptions from climate change, pandemics, automation, artificial intelligence, inequality, and economic changes at the regional, national, and global scale require us to rethink about the way we live and work. We face daunting challenges, but we can draw on our enviable human and physical resources. Through the update to the General Plan, Thrive Montgomery 2050<\/a>, we can embrace new realities, address historic inequities, and shift the way we plan our communities to be more equitable, resilient, and sustainable.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/local-master-plan-areas.jpg\")
Montgomery County has always responded to development pressures by adjusting its land use framework and creating new, and updating its existing, master plans. Today there are more than 60 local area master pans and county-wide functional master plans.<\/p><\/div>\n
Key Planning Milestones<\/h3>\n
- \n
- 1927<\/strong>\u2014The Maryland General Assembly established the M-NCPPC<\/li>\n
- 1948<\/strong>\u2014”Council-Manager” form of government, first home-rule county in Maryland<\/li>\n
- 1954<\/strong>\u2014End of legal school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education<\/li>\n
- 1957<\/strong>\u2014First General Plan for Montgomery and Prince George\u2019s counties<\/li>\n
- 1964<\/strong>\u2014General Plan on Wedges and Corridors
\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/1964.png\")
1964 (Wedges and Corridors)<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n
- 1964<\/strong>\u2014Federal Civil Rights Act<\/li>\n
- 1966<\/strong>\u2014County Council authorized to approve master plans<\/li>\n
- 1967<\/strong>\u2014First mandatory erosion and sediment control requirements by the county<\/li>\n
- 1969<\/strong>\u2014General Plan Comprehensive Amendment<\/li>\n
- 1973<\/strong>\u2014Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit law<\/li>\n
- 1973<\/strong>\u2014Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance<\/li>\n
- 1976<\/strong>\u2014Locational Atlas of Historic Places<\/li>\n
- 1979<\/strong>\u2014Historic Preservation Commission established<\/li>\n
- 1980<\/strong>\u2014Agricultural Reserve and the Transfer of Development Rights program<\/li>\n
- 1986<\/strong>\u2014Annual Growth Policy<\/li>\n
- 1992<\/strong>\u2014Forest Conservation law
![\"Map](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/1993-GP_Refinement_Graphic.jpg\")
1993<\/p><\/div><\/li>\n
- 1993<\/strong>\u2014Limited General Plan Amendment<\/li>\n
- 1994<\/strong>\u2014Special Protection Areas<\/li>\n
- 2003<\/strong>\u2014School Impact Tax<\/li>\n
- 2009<\/strong>\u2014 Climate Protection Plan Resolution<\/li>\n
- 2010<\/strong>\u2014The Purple Line Functional Plan<\/li>\n
- 2013<\/strong>\u2014County-wide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan (BRT)<\/li>\n
- 2014<\/strong>\u2014Tree Canopy Conservation law<\/li>\n
- 2014<\/strong>\u2014Comprehensive Zoning Code Update<\/li>\n
- 2017<\/strong>\u2014International Green Construction Code<\/li>\n
- 2018<\/strong>\u2014 Bicycle Master Plan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Graphic](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/wedges-and-corridor-evolution-map-draft-with-Connecticut-ave.png\")
2020<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Khalid](\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/khalid.png\")
\nAbout the author<\/strong>
\nKhalid Afzal is the co-project manager for Thrive Montgomery 2050. He has been with the Montgomery County Planning Department for more than 20 years working as a land use planner and an urban designer in both the regulatory and long-term planning sectors.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Montgomery County is one of the most desirable places to live and work in the United States. However, like many other places in the country, we are facing new and different issues and trends. This includes weak wage and job growth, persistent racial and economic inequities, demographic and cultural shifts, technological innovation, and climate change. Some of these issues have been reinforced, or even created, by our past public and private plans and actions.<\/p>\n
As we finalize the update to the county\u2019s General Plan, Thrive Montgomery 2050, it is important that we reexamine the county\u2019s planning history to become a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient community. Let\u2019s take a walk through the county\u2019s past 245 years:<\/p>\n
- 1948<\/strong>\u2014”Council-Manager” form of government, first home-rule county in Maryland<\/li>\n