SILVER SPRING, MD – Two recent plans produced by the Montgomery County Planning Department – the White Flint Sector Plan and the Zoning Discovery – received top awards from the Maryland chapter of the American Planning Association (APA), planners learned today. Moreover, three planners who collaborated on a student award when they were college interns won for Outstanding Student Project or Paper.
The biennial awards, which recognize outstanding planning throughout the state, are judged by a jury of planning professionals.
The White Flint Sector Plan was named winner of the contest’s Outstanding Plan for communities greater than 100,000 residents. The Zoning Discovery won for Outstanding Project or Program.
The White Flint Sector Plan, which covers North Bethesda along both sides of Rockville Pike, recommends ways to urbanize one of the few remaining locations in the county where excellent public transportation options and redevelopment potential coincide. With the area dominated by surface parking lots, the plan recommends ways to add community facilities and improve environmental quality. Specifically, the plan envisions a diverse mixed-use center near the White Flint Metro station and transforming Rockville Pike into a landscaped boulevard accompanied by a grid of new streets.
The White Flint Plan is under consideration by the County Council and will be the subject of a public hearing tonight. The Council reviews each community plan in worksessions before creating a final version that sets land use policy and the vision for an area.
The Zoning Discovery document analyzed the county Zoning Code as part of a three-year project to review, revise and simplify a code that many consider outdated and ineffective. The Zoning Discovery report analyzed the code to set the stage for the comprehensive revision. The report diagnosed problems and suggested solutions, such as better organization, evaluating current zones for relevance, using more tables and graphics to convey complex concepts, and matching land use to development patterns.
The student project, Connect Barracks Row: A Future Vision for a Washington, D.C., Community, was part of a semester-long project undertaken by graduate planning students in the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland at College Park. With support from the local community and the District of Columbia’s Department of Planning, the report makes recommendations as to how Lower Barracks Row can best respond to the changing neighborhood climate and evolve to help its current residents and surrounding communities.
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