SILVER SPRING, MD – Residents,
property owners and business leaders in Germantown interested in the
community’s growth can learn about the planning department’s analysis of development
scenarios for the area at a meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11
at the Upcounty Services Center.
The 1989 Germantown master plan looks ahead 20 years in a
comprehensive guide to the area’s land use, zoning and environmental features. To
bring the community’s land use patterns more in line with 21st-century
realities, planners began updating that master plan earlier this year.
On Tuesday, planners will convene their community advisory
committee, which is advising staff on local needs. Other interested residents also
are invited.
Among the planners’ potential recommendations are
designating more mixed land uses that would transform large, car-centric office
parks into combinations of office, residential and retail accessible by mass transit.
Planners also are considering ways to formalize Germantown’s fledgling business
district and strengthen the town center, which will be discussed at a later
meeting.
The staff’s draft will be considered by the Montgomery
County Planning Board in work sessions later this year and in early 2008. The
board will hold work sessions before and after convening a public hearing, then
will finalize its version of the plan and send it to the County Council for
review and eventual approval.
Germantown, a diverse community that runs along both sides
of I-270, encompasses about 11,000 acres in a three-by-five mile area. This
planning effort looks at about 2,500 acres of that planning area – what
planners call the employment corridor. The Corridor Cities Transitway, a
proposed rapid bus or light rail line to be constructed by the State Highway
Administration, runs through the heart of the planning area.
Every area of the county has a master or sector plan. Each
plan is intended to look ahead 15 to 20 years. Master and sector plans
establish zoning and are used as guides for when planners are reviewing development
applications and for funding public improvements.
WHO: Montgomery County Planning Department staff
WHAT: Community meeting on the Germantown Master Plan
WHEN: Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007 – 7 p.m.
WHERE: Upcounty
Services Center, 12900 Middlebrook Road, Suite 1000, Germantown
For more information about the Germantown master planning
process, go to www.mcparkandplanning.org/germantown/GermantownForward.shtm
or contact Sue Edwards.