Makeover Montgomery 5 Sessions - Montgomery Planning

Makeover Montgomery 5 Conference Session Schedule

Thursday, September 22, University of Maryland National Center for Smart Growth, School of Architecture Building: 7 p.m. Keynote

Saturday, September 24, M-NCPPC Wheaton Headquarters building: 9-10:30 a.m. sessions | 10:45 a.m.–12:15 p.m. sessions | Closing plenary and lunch, 12:30 p.m.

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Thursday, 7 p.m.

Keynote presentation

MM5 will begin at the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation on Thursday, September 22 at 7 p.m. with a keynote address by Angela D. Brooks, FAICP, President Elect of the American Planning Association, and past chair of the APA Diversity Task Force. With a career in planning spanning over 20 years, Ms. Brooks has positively impacted underserved, underrepresented, and disadvantaged communities through her work, both professionally and personally. She has built her career taking a nontraditional path of service to people who are often overlooked. Currently, Ms. Brooks is the Director of the Illinois Office of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, a non-profit Community Development Financial Institution that transforms how communities use housing. Ms. Brooks has participated in extensive housing and community development as a land use administrator, housing policy manager, and real estate development professional in local and county government agencies, non-profit, and a housing authority in both Washington and Illinois.

The keynote address by Angela D. Brooks is free to the public and attendees are not required to register for the conference.

Friday, 8:15 a.m. – 9 a.m.

Registration and light breakfast, 8:15-8:45 a.m.

Welcome, 8:45-9 a.m.

Friday, 9 a.m. – 10 a.m.

Opening Plenary, 2nd Floor Auditorium

How can epidemics help us understand urban environments?What insights from the outbreak, experience, and response to previous urban epidemics might inform our understanding of COVID-19? How might we begin to articulate and reflect on the ways in which COVID-19 has shaped and continues to shape urban life, institutions, communities, and the built environment? How can we leverage these insights to better prevent and more justly intervene in future pandemics? To answer these questions, in March 2020, Drs. Mohammad Gharipour and Caitlin DeClercq founded the Epidemic Urbanism Initiative. With members from 91 countries, this initiative is committed to forging connections across disciplines and countries and between scholars, teachers, practitioners, and the general public in service of learning about, reflecting on, envisioning, and creating healthier, more resilient cities. This lecture by Dr. Gharipour will address the formation and development of the Epidemic Urbanism Initiative as an international effort to foster interdisciplinary collaborations.

Presenter: Mohammad Gharipour, Professor and Director of the Architecture Program, University of Maryland

Friday, 10:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

Small Business Preservation, 2nd Floor Auditorium

Saving Small Business in the Gentrification Era

Small businesses, particularly those owned by immigrants and people of color, are vulnerable to displacement and financial strains when communities gentrify. The Small Business Anti-Displacement Network is a project of the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth Education & Research and is the first national project focused on small business displacement in gentrifying neighborhoods. This presentation will describe the project and its many efforts to help small businesses remain resilient in the face of change and benefit from new neighborhood investments.

Presenters: Nohely Alverez and Bi’Anncha Andrews, Urban and Regional Planning and Design Program, School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, University of Maryland

Can Minority Small Business Ownership Survive When the Purple Line is Completed?

The Purple Line will greatly increase transit accessibility to jobs and points of interest along its path, potentially increasing land values in neighborhoods where many minority and low-income residents and small business operators may be vulnerable to displacement. Using both traditional and novel sources of data, this case study seeks to understand how gentrification and nearby construction impacts small businesses and residents in advance of the opening of the transit line.

Presenter: Nicholas Finio, National Center for Smart Growth, School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, University of Maryland

Employee Ownership: A Powerful Tool to Support Resilient and Thriving Local Economies

Employee ownership is a proven strategy for retaining thriving local businesses, saving jobs, and supporting economic resiliency. Representatives from Project Equity will share how Montgomery County can unlock the power of employee ownership to address some of businesses’ most urgent needs while building community wealth and economic resiliency.

Presenters: Terron Ferguson, Project Equity

Fairland and Briggs Chaney Master Plan, 2nd Floor Conference Room (02-203)

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Reimagine a Community and Make it Reality

The Fall 2021 UMD Community Planning Studio partnered with Montgomery County’s Planning Department to provide a planning sector analysis and scenario plans to aid in the development of the new Fairland and Briggs Chaney Master Plan. The scope of work included analysis of existing conditions within the plan boundaries and the provision of three scenario plans ranging from no change to high levels of change. This presentation will describe our scenarios and reflect on the process and benefits of exploratory-scenario planning. Together, our scenario plans demonstrate the urgency of change and help us imagine a better future for the community that is both realizable and just.

Presenters: Carter Reitman, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, Pierre Gaunaurd, University of Maryland

Building Social Resilience in Fairland

Marginalized communities across the nation are leveraging their innate sense of resilience by mastering the art of making something happen without the luxury of private investment. The Fairland and Briggs Chaney Master Plan team is preparing a master plan that harnesses this collaborative energy with community stakeholders. Traditional strategies are giving way to innovative engagement that enhances neighborhood networks and creates new systems that yield significant feedback. As a result of successful outcomes, we are proposing to share the intriguing details of community development and the importance of leveraging social capital through innovative engagement strategies as part of a master plan update.

Presenters: Molline Jackson, Clark Larson, Phillip Estes, Yilin Lai, and Zubin Adrianvala, Montgomery County Planning Department

Climate Adaptation, 3rd Floor Conference Room #2 (03-202)

Keeping it Cool: Climate Resiliency in Urban Areas

As the Earth continues to warm up, the effects are more acutely felt in highly developed communities. Urban areas far exceed the temperatures of nearby suburban and rural areas. This is called Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI). This presentation will focus on innovative UHI assessments, planning strategies, and recommendations applied to Silver Spring, MD.

Presenter: Tina Schneider, Montgomery County Planning Department

Urban Forestry: An intersectional resilience strategy

Trees in urban (and suburban) areas can provide social, economic, and health benefits. A well-planned and maintained urban forest can mitigate climate change, improve human health, enhance economic and social resilience of neighborhoods, and promote equity. This presentation will describe the current state of Montgomery County’s urban tree cover and highlight opportunities for improvement.

Presenters: Amy Lindsey and Steve Findley, Montgomery County Planning Department

Electronic Vehicle Readiness Planning, 3rd Floor Conference Room #3 (03-203)

Driving Toward a Climate-Friendly Local Transportation System

This session will provide an overview of electric-vehicle readiness planning among several local Maryland jurisdictions compared to best practices nationwide. It will then present several examples from Montgomery County, one of the leading jurisdictions in the state with regard to climate-action planning. The session will explain what Montgomery County is doing to achieve the County’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goal of becoming net-zero by 2035.

Presenter: Dan Hibbert, Division of Transit Service, Montgomery County Department of Transportation; Hiroyuki Iseki, Urban and Regional Planning and Design Program, School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, University of Maryland; Calvin Jones, Fleet Management Services, Montgomery County Department of General Services

Friday, 12 p.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Micromobility, Auditorium

A Tale of Eight Cities and How They Solve the Last-Mile Problem

Micromobility has taken over American cities, but it’s increasingly a solution for suburban communities seeking to solve the perennial last-mile problem: how to get people from transit to their homes, to shopping, or to work. Urban planner Dan Reed will discuss his work in suburban places — including Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where his team is working with Cleveland and seven suburban towns to create a regional bike and scooter share network — and in Prince George’s County, MD, where an expansion of the regional Capital Bikeshare system is supporting the county’s efforts to build TOD.

Presenter: Dan Reed, Greater Greater Washington

Stormwater Infrastructure and Flooding, 2nd Floor Conference Room (02-203)

Water and Worst-Case Scenarios

Climate change is expected to increase the number of severe storms in Maryland. This session provides an overview of tools, data, and techniques to analyze and visualize impacts from various theoretical flooding events in a 3-D environment. Discussion will focus on flooding impacts to transportation infrastructure and accessibility and will examine techniques to integrate climate-change data within a geographical information system and the potential for projecting flood scenarios.

Presenters: Russell Provost and Jon Ryder, Montgomery County Planning Department

Smart Sensors and Indoor Living, 3rd Floor Conference Room #2 (03-202)

Bringing Nature Indoors: AI, Data Sensors, and Bio-Diversity Team Up

A San Francisco area start-up design and technology company has developed the next generation of green tech/prop tech for buildings of all types. This could be the next leap forward for indoor healthy living. The unique design of Bio-Bulb, which relies on Data Sensors and AI, allows many types of plants to survive and thrive at various light levels and nutritional needs. The technology can be employed in corporate, government, and residential settings at multiple scales to make indoor spaces greener and healthier.

Presenters: Margaret McFarland, Colvin Institute and University of Maryland; Hooman Koliji, CREO, BioBulb, and University of Maryland

Stormwater Infrastructure, 3rd Floor Conference Room #3 (03-203)

Resilient Heritage in the Face of Climate Change and Gentrification

This presentation will describe a recent project based in Prince George’s County, MD’s North Brentwood community. What started as a class project idea has grown into a long-term collaborative effort to address multiple challenges identified by community members and municipal officials.

Data from 3-D digital documentation technologies will provide the digital architecture needed to develop a place-based digital platform that can help the community share its history, provide the spatial foundation to archaeological fieldwork, and serve as a high-resolution dataset to enable effective modelling of stormwater management strategies with the help of the Stormwater Infrastructure Resilience and Justice Lab.

Presenter: Justin Mohammadi, Graduate Student, University of Maryland

Friday, 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Lunch Break

Lunch will not be provided. Please visit a neighborhood restaurant.

Friday, 1:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.

Affordable Housing, Auditorium

The Changing Neighborhood in the U.S.: Growth, Concentration, and Displacement from 2000-2019

This study follows a methodology developed by the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity that categorizes neighborhood change over time. The presentation updates the Minnesota study with more recent data and focuses on Montgomery County and the Washington, D.C. region.

Presenter: Benjamin Kraft, Montgomery County Planning Department

Economic Development, 2nd Floor Conference Room (02-203)

The Purple Line Corridor and Small Businesses: Can They Coexist?

The Purple Line Corridor Coalition (PLCC) is a collaborative working to harness the best of what the Purple Line can offer: inclusive and equitable development, with small business preservation and growth as a pillar of that vision. Key PLCC stakeholders will share what’s working in small business preservation and growth efforts along the Purple Line, with lessons on collaborative solutions for other communities facing rapid change.

Presenter: Sheila Somashekhar, Purple Line Corridor Coalition; Javier Rivas, Latino Economic Development Center; Chris Gillis, Policy and Neighborhood Development,Montgomery Housing Partnership; Manual Ochoa, Ochoa Urban Collaborative; Catherine Rytkonen, Rosy Owl Creative

Economic Development, 3rd Floor Conference Room #2 (03-202)

Is HOD the Next TOD? Why Hospital-Oriented Development Should Be the Next Big Thing

American hospitals employ more than 6.7 million people, generate more than $900 billion in revenue, comprise close to 5% of the U.S. economy, and are often the largest employer in a community. The typical hospital and accompanying land-use policies fail to fully leverage the unique characteristics of this valuable asset to maximize the potential benefits for a community and community development. A summary of economic, environmental, and health benefits of transit-oriented development (TOD), walkable communities, and healthy community design serves as a basis for a proposed vision, agenda, and land-use policies for hospital-oriented development (HOD).

Presenter: Erik Aulestia, Torti Gallas and Partners

Climate Adaptation, 3rd Floor Conference Room #3 (03-203)

Climate Change and Strengthening Maryland’s Coast

Climate change is predicted to affect Maryland in a variety of ways, including an increase in extreme events such as drought, storms, flooding, and forest fires; more heat-related stress; the spread of existing or new vector-born disease; and increased erosion and inundation of low-lying coastal areas. The Maryland DNR Coastal Resilience Program has worked with communities across the state to identify proactive approaches to dealing with climate change. This session will provide an overview of three projects completed at the University of Maryland, which illustrate the many approaches being used to respond to the state’s climate change impacts.

Presenters: Kate Vogel, Maryland Department of Natural Resources; Michael Ezban, Clinical Assistant Professor and interim Assistant Director of Architecture Program, University of Maryland; Matthew Reise, graduat student in Landscape Architecture, University of Maryland; Nicholas Dibella, graduate student of Architecture, University of Maryland; Samantha Jamero, graduate student of Architecture and Community Planning, University of Maryland

Friday, 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Smart Sensors and Data Analytics, Auditorium

Smart Cities, Smart Signage: Regulating Data-Driven Technologies

Designers and developers will lead the design and installation of new types of signs that will accompany the evolution of the “smart city.” This presentation will explore the development of smart cities across the globe, with an emphasis on the importance of citizen participation and social equity in developing the policies governing the technologies. The presenters chronicle emerging technologies that will shape signage and wayfinding in the near future and provide guidance to the approach cities should take to ready themselves for the role of signs in the future.

Presenter: Dawn Jourdan, School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, University of Maryland

Artificial Intelligence: Strengthening our Communities

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is increasing steadily in academia and industry but not to the same extent in the planning profession. AI has the potential to improve planning outcomes by collecting and interpreting new flows of real-time data to help planners understand their communities and make beneficial decisions. While AI tends to evoke images of smart-city sensors and traffic management, some of the most promising opportunities have major implications for resilience: monitoring of city systems, identifying and escalating issues, and automatically implementing stopgap measures.

Presenter: Trey Gordner, Hawaii Zoning Atlas

A Method to Develop the Initial Digital Twin: A Case Study in Montgomery County

In a smart-city design context, a digital twin is a virtual representation of a city’s assets, including physical and semantic data. Physical data include buildings, roads, green spaces and semantic data include lighting systems, mobility solutions, energy, and grid capabilities. This project presents a novel method to create a digital twin of urban blocks, through integrating urban-scale, low-resolution two-dimensional data from GIS and building-scale, high-resolution three-dimensional data generated as a building information model (BIM).

Presenter: Ming Hu, School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, University of Maryland; Hassan Ameli, Metropolitan Planning, Policy, and Design, University of Utah

Immigration and Cultural Diversity, 2nd Floor Conference Room (02-203)

Arlandria-Chirilagua’s Neighborhood Cultural Diversity Preservation + Resiliency

In 2019, the City of Alexandria, VA launched a community planning process to address impending development around the Arlandria-Chirilagua neighborhood. The goal is to enable residents and businesses that preserve a community’s cultural diversity to stay in that community. The planning process was conducted in Spanish first, and utilized various tools and strategies to engage residents in ways that felt safe and convenient and ensured that those most impacted contributed to the vision for the future.

Presenters: Jose Ayala, Department of Planning and Zoning, City of Alexandria; Helen McIlvaine, Office of Housing, City of Alexandria; Jeffrey Farner, Deputy Director, Department of Planning and Zoning, City of Alexandria

Green Infrastructure, 3rd Floor Conference Room #2 (03-202)

ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) Certification for Maryland Forestry Products

ESG certification is a growing requirement in many business sectors. The Greater Cumberland Coalition worked with representatives from environmental groups, forestry, manufacturing, and government to establish an ESG program, driven by Maryland’s forest and wood products industry, that builds trust and markets corporate, social, and environmental impacts. The project seeks to support a forest and wood products industry in Maryland that can provide sustainable, local, and profitable products as well as promote healthy forests and species preservation.

Presenters: Nima Farshchi, Center for Social Value Creation, University of Maryland; J. Philip Gottwals, ACDS, LLC

Mainstreaming Mass Timber

Valued for its biophilic and sustainable qualities, mass timber has spiked in popularity since it was fdeveloped in Europe in the 1980s. Now, as mass timber construction gains momentum along the East Coast and within major metropolitan areas, members of the real estate and urban planning communities seek to advance their knowledge of the material’s structural requirements, capabilities, and benefits. This session will provide a fundamental overview of mass timber, including addressing its unique design considerations and challenges.

Presenter: Tom Corrado and Jason Wright, Hickok Cole

Green Infrastructure, 3rd Floor Conference Room #3 (03-203)

Net-Positive Education: The Pathway for a High-Performance Learning Environment

Activities in a thriving school can consume tremendous amounts of energy. Perkins Eastman, along with CMTA and DGS (D.C. Department of General Services), strive for “Net-Positive Education,” which is a process in which we align our pursuit of Net-Zero Energy with strategies to improve the indoor environment from a daylight, thermal comfort, acoustic, and air-quality perspective. The presenters will showcase the building analysis tools used during the design process and explain how conducting early charrettes with the client, operations, design, construction teams, and the community helped establish project goals and kept involved parties engaged in the possible challenges and opportunities around Net-Zero Energy.

Presenters: Sean O’Donnell, Omar Calderon, and Heather Jauregui, Perkins Eastman

Friday, 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Reception at the M-NCPPC Wheaton Headquarters with light refreshments

Saturday: 8:30 a.m. – 9 a.m.

Registration and light breakfast

Saturday: 9 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

Green Infrastructure, Auditorium

You Complete (Streets) Me

To achieve environmental, climate, and infrastructure resilience goals, we need entire networks of continuous and connected streets for people walking, using transit, riding bikes, driving, and moving freight. In this presentation, learn about a tool developed by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) and the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) to streamline this planning process. The tool includes two modules—a GIS-based network analysis platform and a multimodal performance calculator—that evolve the state of the practice for complete streets planning and design.

Presenters: Cullen McCormick and Matthew Ridgway, Fehr & Peers

Planning for Moving the Next Generation

When considering next generation mobility, it is more than just roads and streets – it is about harnessing the power of innovation to create an ecosystem that supports a more efficient, inclusive, connected, and supportive community. The presentation will foster interactive discussion through project experience around opportunities and challenges for implementation of solutions that align with local government vision and multi-discipline partnership focus. We will focus on two recent projects – a smart mobility charrette in Buffalo, NY that produced a report on the future of mobility and an action plan around next generation infrastructure and smart cities for Centennial, CO.

Presenters: Greg Rodriquez and John Bachmann, Stantec

Applying the MDOT SHA Context Driven Guide to MD 185 and MD 187

The MDOT SHA Context Driven Guide is a planning and design resource offering practitioners’ guidelines centered on establishing safe and effective multi-modal transportation systems. The presentation will discuss the first application of the context-driven guide in the state, and how the project impacts environmental and safety resiliency in Montgomery County. The project focused on safe and accessible mobility and sustainable travel options by incorporating bicycle and pedestrian elements along Maryland 185 and 187.

Presenters: Matthew Ridgway and Tory Gibler, Fehr & Peers; Melissa Miklus, RK&K

Economic Development, 2nd Floor Conference Room (02-203)

The Economics of Implementing Design Excellence in Bethesda

This 90-minute presentation and panel discussion will focus on multiple strategies used in Bethesda, MD where excellence in design in public places supports economic resilience and enhances quality of life. The discussion will explore how to implement these ideas in other types of areas in a jurisdiction and how to shift the discussion of design excellence from a budget issue to a design approach issue.

Presenters: Grace Bogdan and Paul Mortensen: Montgomery County Planning Department; Rod Henderer, Callison RTKL; Robert Sponseller, Shalom Baranes Associates; Janel Kausner, Washington Property Company

Immigration and Cultural Diversity, 3rd Floor Conference Room #2 (03-202)

Immigration, Economic Vitality, and Community Leadership

Through personal stories and insights, this panel of immigrant community leaders from three continents will highlight how immigration has shaped Montgomery County. The panelists’ path to community leadership will shine a light on how a richly diverse community can better leverage immigrants’ contributions in every aspect of community life.

The panel will be moderated by Delegate Lily Qi, a first-generation immigrant, state legislator, and longtime advocate for immigrant integration and political engagement, who was Montgomery County’s official on economic development and community engagement.

Speakers: Lily Qi, Maryland State Delegate; Barbara Ebel, Maryland Department of Labor; Shruti Bhatanagar, Sierra Club Montgomery County; Daniel Koroma, Montgomery County Government

Zoning and Land Use, 3rd Floor Conference Room #3 (03-203)

Simplifying the Zoning and Land-Use Change Process Using Web GIS

The Prince George’s County, MD Planning Department adopted a new zoning ordinance for the first time in over 50 years. All current master and sector plans have zoning and land-use change recommendations, which had to be created in PDF form and marked up manually. This presentation will demonstrate a web GIS application to simplify the process of zoning and land-use change recommendations in master and sector plans.

Presenter: Adam Dodgshon and Mussie Tewolde, Prince George’s County Planning Department

Measuring and Mapping Zoning Constraints: A Tutorial

There is no national database of land-use regulations, so researchers have typically gathered their own data and created their own measures of regulatory stringency either directly by reading hundreds of pages of legalese, or indirectly by surveying urban planners. This presentation will demonstrate an original measurement that is easily calculated from available data, comparable within and across geographic areas at multiple scales, and comparable within and across geographic areas over time.

Presenter: Trey Gordner, Hawaii Zoning Atlas

So What Plans Apply to This Place, Anyway?

The Plans and Regulations Information Tool (PaRIT) is a computing interface that enables
spatial queries to identify and access the many plans and regulations that apply to a given place. This presentation will demonstrate the capabilities of PaRIT in applications to the Purple Line light rail transit project in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties, MD. The tool relies on an extensive database of geo-spatially defined plans that express intentions or visions of important organizations in both counties. These plans range from traditional neighborhood level land-use plans to countywide general plans, but also include educational facility master plans and bicycle and pedestrian plans. Regulations included in the tool include legally binding rights, incentives, or constraints on land development in the corridor such as zoning, impact fees, and economic development incentive zones.

Presenter: Cyrus Chimento, Office of Spatial Analysis and Visualization , Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation

Saturday, 10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Affordable Housing, Auditorium

Adapting Single-Family Zones in Montgomery County

This presentation based on an architecture master’s thesis, will show that the current limitations on the single-family zones (R-60) can permit two- to four-unit buildings and intergenerational housing. This is already being done in many places.

Presenters: Ralph Bennett, School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, University of Maryland; Kathleen Gilday

An Examination of Bladensburg’s Potential

The historic Town of Bladensburg in Prince George’s County, MD is a bustling thoroughfare with three sites in the town center that are suitable for mixed-use redevelopment. However, income and education levels and a lack of transit and a recognizable brand are challenges in a competitive region. Through a detailed examination of datasets, this presentation will show how Bladensburg could potentially realize new below-market-rate rental housing units, retail, and restaurants in a surface-based, subsidized, mixed-use redevelopment project.

Presenters: Dan Sams and Sam White, Prince George’s Planning Department

Economic Development, 2nd Floor Conference Room (02-203)

Rewriting the Playbook in Frederick, MD

After adopting a new strategic-level master plan in late 2019, Frederick County planners, elected officials, and economic development partners faced the daunting task of rewriting the local playbook for plan implementation. Addressing a variety of typical and novel challenges, planners went to work on developing an implementation program that would satisfy the complex needs of the community through urbanization, preservation, and suburban retrofitting strategies. The three-part presentation describes Frederick County’s nascent planning approach by discussing strategic and tactical decisions that continue to advance the goals of the Livable Frederick Master Plan.

Presenters: John Dimitriou and Tim Goodfellow, Livable Frederick Planning and Design Office

Climate Adaptation, 3rd Floor Conference Room #2 (03-202)

Ready For Resilience: A Government’s Guide for Strength During Climate Change

Addressing climate threats requires local governments to strengthen their resilience and mobilize community support and resources. In this session, we will explore how governments can integrate climate change into daily decisions and plans and then have a Q&A session.

Presenters: Stephanie Dalke, Environmental Finance Center, University of Maryland ; Beth Olsen, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland; Eileen Singleton, Baltimore Metropolitan Council

Community Gardening, 3rd Floor Conference Room #3 (03-203)

An “Organic” Way to Address Food Insecurity

Food insecurity has become a major issue across the state, and Montgomery County is no exception. This project connected a county tree farm’s staff, a community gardening advocate, and university students to provide fresh vegetables tailored for the county population. The students explored the county demographics with a focus on the ethnic groups represented in the county. They then identified the food culture of the many ethnic communities to understand the types of vegetables that could best serve the county’s residents. Working with the Pope Farm Nursery staff, the students designed a large vegetable garden that could be maintained with the farm’s existing equipment and staff.

Presenters: Michelle Nelson, Community Gardens Program, Montgomery County Parks Department; Cat Kahn, Harvest Share; Natalie Mayanja and Adriana Penabad, Pope Farm Nursery

Saturday, 12:15 p.m.

Closing Plenary and Lunch (included with registration), Auditorium

The closing plenary of the 5^th Makeover Montgomery Conference will feature remarks by Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson on both the accomplishments and continuing work on “making over” Montgomery County. The goal of compact, transit-oriented development with great design has progressed but there are still challenges. As a case study of this challenge, three renowned architecture firms have been asked to create a vision for the Silver Spring Transit Center area promoting big ideas that are visionary, welcoming to all and sustainable well into the future. The Silver Spring Transit Center functions as a gateway to Montgomery County with multiple forms of transit all coming together at this one location. This Closing Plenary, featuring inventive visions of a future Silver Spring and a lively discussion, will bring to a close a weekend of presentations and discussions on economic, social and environmental resiliency.

Moderator: Casey Anderson, Montgomery Planning Board Chair

Panel: Robert Sponseller, FAIA, Shalom Baranes Associates; Dan Kaplan, FAIA, FX Collaborative; Matthew Bell, FAIA,Perkins Eastman