Montgomery Planning, Discover Long Branch and Montgomery Housing Partnership will join residents and community members to reimagine a livelier downtown Long Branch
SILVER SPRING, MD –The Montgomery County Planning Department, part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), is collaborating with Discover Long Branch, an initiative of the Long Branch Business League, and the Montgomery Housing Partnership on Long Branch Festival Week.
This event will be held from September 21 through September 28, 2019 and involve the community in a collaborative planning effort to reimagine a livelier and friendlier downtown Long Branch. With the help of volunteers, a temporary civic green for gatherings, as proposed in the 2013 Long Branch Sector Plan, will be created for the festival.
Learn more about the Long Branch Festival Week.
In preparation for this event, the Montgomery Housing Partnership in collaboration with Discover Long Branch and Montgomery Planning will host a kick-off meeting on Friday, May 31, 2019 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at El Golfo Restaurant (8739 Flower Avenue, Silver Spring, MD) to launch the planning effort.
Attendees will share thoughts and ideas on how the temporary civic green and fall festival could be used as a tool to build community in the Long Branch area.
The project is modeled on the White Flint Placemaking Festival that took place in October 2018 and drew more than 1,000 people. The Long Branch festival will build on the success of this event to demonstrate the power of placemaking.
What is Placemaking?
Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of the community. It strengthens the connections between community members and the places they share. Placemaking refers to a collaborative process that shapes our public realm in order to maximize value. This concept goes beyond just promoting better urban design principles. Placemaking facilitates creative thinking, capitalizes on community assets and contributes to the community’s health, happiness and well-being. More than livable, these places are loved.
Purpose of the Long Branch Festival Week:
- Realize the public space recommendation in the 2012 Long Branch Sector Plan.
- Demonstrate ways of achieving plan recommendations through short-term solutions before major investments are made.
- Embrace placemaking as a means of capturing shared values and generating ideas for public spaces.
- Engage local businesses, schools and community members in a dialogue about the role of public spaces and streetscape designs within their community.
- Encourage property owners to plan for the long-term transformation of their properties.
- Use temporary placemaking as a tool to gather data and help inform permanent designs for successful public spaces and streetscapes in Long Branch.
- Make a positive impact on the community with a public space that can be used for gatherings and events after the festival and was underutilized before the event.
For more information, contact Laura Shipman at Laura.Shipman@montgomeryplanning.org or 301-495-4558.