Thrive Montgomery 2050

Planning Board approves Thrive Montgomery 2050

The Thrive Montgomery 2050 plan is an update to Montgomery County’s leading planning policy document, the General Plan. The last time this plan was updated was in 1993. Currently, the Montgomery County Council is reviewing the following documents, approved by the Montgomery County Planning Board in April 2021.

View Thrive Myths vs. Facts

Today’s challenges

Today Montgomery County finds itself facing new challenges and changing circumstances that require us to rethink approaches that served us well in the past. Montgomery County has tremendous assets, including a highly educated workforce, proximity to the nation’s capital, and a culture of openness to newcomers, but we also are struggling to attract businesses and house our residents, grappling with a legacy of racial and economic inequality, and facing the effects of climate change. As a group our residents are older, more diverse, and less likely to live in traditional family arrangements. We have evolved from a bedroom community to a complex jurisdiction with major employment centers, urban hubs, mature residential neighborhoods, and rural landscapes.

With 85 percent of our land already developed or otherwise constrained, accommodating even the relatively modest growth expected over the life of this plan is an ambitious undertaking.

The demographic characteristics of Montgomery County residents have changed. With 85 percent of our land already developed or otherwise constrained, accommodating growth will be a challenge. This plan outlines strategies to accommodate growth in ways that not only make room for new residents but also improve the quality of life for the people who are already here.

While the Wedges and Corridors Plan was visionary, its implementation also had some unintended consequences such as inequitable investment between the eastern and western parts of the county, excessive reliance on automobiles, and zoning of more than one-third of the county exclusively for single family homes. Discriminatory land use and planning-related practices, including the legacy of redlining and racial covenants combined with exclusionary zoning, produced inequitable patterns of development.

While the end of de jure racial discrimination eliminated many legal barriers to equity, social and economic obstacles remain. For Montgomery County to continue to thrive, we must be prepared to make difficult decisions and take bold steps to prepare for the future. Thrive Montgomery 2050 is the vehicle for assessing these shifts and adapting our approach to planning for the next 30 years.

Thrive Montgomery 2050 Outcomes

Economic Health:: We want to ensure a vibrant, strong and competitive economy by attracting and maintaining major employers, continuing to enhance our federal campuses, supporting small businesses and innovation, and attracting and retaining a high-quality, diverse workforce.
Equitable Communities:: We want to create a place where all residents have equal access to attainable housing, healthy foods, employment, transportation, education and more.
Environmental Resilience:: We must use the best strategies to fight climate change and mitigate the impact of both planned changes and unexpected events and continue to preserve our natural resources.

How we will achieve our goals

Through the vision established in the Thrive Montgomery plan, our desired outcomes will be achieved by completing goals in the following categories.

Myths vs. facts

Download 1-page printable fact sheet

Myth: Thrive Montgomery 2050 will decide whether your neighborhood will have duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and apartment buildings.

Fact: Thrive Montgomery 2050 is a policy document and does not change any zoning in any neighborhood. Among its many recommendations addressing the future of transportation, design, parks and recreation as well as housing, Thrive recommends that Montgomery County should have a diversity of housing types to meet the varying needs of residents. Thrive also recommends preserving naturally occurring affordable housing, converting old office buildings into housing, collocating housing with other uses, and enhancing our existing moderately priced dwelling unit program.

The Attainable Housing Strategies initiative is a separate project, requested by the County Council, for providing new housing options to residents at the right sizes, locations, and price points in Montgomery County. This includes providing recommendations to the County Council on where diverse housing such as duplexes, triplexes, etc. should be allowed as well as what regulations, such as setbacks, density, and parking requirements, should be required for diverse housing types. Once the County Council has those recommendations later this fall, the Council will consider if it wants to pursue these strategies and, if so, it will hold public hearings to get community feedback.
Myth: Thrive Montgomery 2050 is anti-car and says everyone should use mass transit or a bicycle.

Fact: Thrive Montgomery 2050 seeks to create a transportation system that is safe, comfortable, and appealing for all residents, whether they drive, take transit, bike, walk or roll. For several decades, Montgomery County built streets and communities oriented mainly to driving, while underinvesting in other modes of transportation. Years of prioritizing auto travel has created areas where quality transit options are limited and/or it is unsafe to bike, walk, or roll. Thrive wants to correct this by providing safe and convenient options if travelers cannot or choose not to drive. Thrive focuses future growth on corridors, through infill and redevelopment, and retrofitting existing roads to be safer. While many people will still choose to drive, it will also be more comfortable and feasible to walk, roll, bike or take transit, and it will enable Montgomery County to accommodate more residents and workers more sustainably. Providing more travel choices to residents, employees, and visitors helps reduce congestion and advances the County’s climate goals by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Myth: Thrive Montgomery 2050 does not include dedicated recommendations related to environmental resilience, racial equity, or economic health.

Fact: The three big goals of Thrive Montgomery 2050 ̶ economic health, community equity, and environmental resilience – and specific recommendations to support them are woven throughout the entire plan. This was done intentionally to show how foundational each of these outcomes are to each of the chapters of the plan. In the work with Council, the plan is being enhanced to show the specific recommendations related to the three big goals in each chapter.
Myth: Thrive Montgomery 2050 neglects the importance of the county’s Agricultural Reserve.

Fact: Thrive Montgomery 2050 clearly supports the importance of protecting the Agricultural Reserve for agricultural use and environmental benefits. It directs future growth away from the Reserve so that it can maintain its rural character. The plan makes the case of why the Ag Reserve is more important than ever and strengthens the need for the rural pattern of development while making it relevant and accessible so that all residents can value the “green lungs” and jewel of the county.
Myth: Thrive Montgomery 2050 will cost too much.

Fact: Montgomery County will grow over the coming decades by an additional 200,000 people, based on the Cooperative Forecast produced by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) before Thrive Montgomery 2050 launched. Growth is coming and must be accommodated and paid for under any scenario. The goal of Thrive Montgomery 2050 is to change how we plan for development so that it is more compact and thus more efficient, cost effective, and sustainable. The focus is on infill development along corridors that have or are planned to have infrastructure, so there will be less need to build new roads and extend infrastructure, cutting costs. In addition, if the recommendations in Thrive Montgomery 2050 are implemented, the county will be more attractive to businesses, employers, and prospective residents. The county’s current economic health is not good, and Thrive will improve it, resulting in an increased tax base by attracting new employers who will bring better job opportunities.

Planning Board approves Thrive Montgomery 2050

Today’s challenges

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