Politics & Government

VIDEO: Montgomery Village Readies to Shape its Decades-Long Vision

'Some things have to change and some things don't,' advises county's top planner.

Embrace change. Redefine what—and who—Montgomery Village is. Don’t get stuck on hard-and-fast ideas years before decisions about the Village’s future need to be made.

That’s what the county’s top planner told more than 100 community leaders and activists this week, a who’s-who of Montgomery Village decision-makers embarking upon a months-long process to galvanize a community-wide vision for what kind of redevelopment the Village ought to encourage in the coming decades.

With the era of suburban growth a thing of the past—and the expiration of the Village’s unique land use rules looming in 2015—Rollin Stanley, director of the Montgomery County Planning Department, urged his audience Tuesday night to identify priorities, reevaluate expectations and understand the regional context of growth and competition, but without getting too attached too early on to the details.

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“It’s about the future, and who are you planning for. … You’ve got your places to shop, you’ve got your places to live. And you’ve got great family neighborhoods. But as we move deeper and deeper into this part of the century, we realize how some things have to change and some things don’t,” he said. “… As you move forward in your planning exercise, don’t be so specific that if something happens later on it takes a long time to change it.”

Montgomery Village’s ripest opportunities will come at commercial centers, Stanley said, pointing to the recent White Flint sector plan—not for its size and density, but for its embodiment of a community’s willingness to change.

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“It’s about creating a different environment in those small nodes,” he said.

The key in White Flint has been in creating zoning rules that give developers incentive to take on the risk of redevelopment.

“We all like the pretty pictures, we all like the Thomas More idea of utopia. But there’s fiscal realities. White Flint … looks like that because they make money at it,” he said. “In order to get these people that own these properties that are currently on a beach in Florida sucking back on a piña colada thinking about how much money they’re making on properties that they don’t have mortgages on to get them to decide to take out a bank loan—which is really hard to get these days—and take on the risk of redeveloping their property, when they’re already making a lot of money, you have to give them incentive.”

The Montgomery Village Foundation’s “2030 Vision” process is in the early stages. A committee of residents has met once a month since the fall, focusing on four properties:

  • the Montgomery Village golf course
  • the Montgomery Village Center shopping center
  • the Montgomery Village Professional Center
  • the “gateway” parcel at the corner of Montgomery Village Avenue and Lost Knife Road.

The 2030 Vision is, in turn, a precursor to the county planning board’s revision of the Gaithersburg East master plan, the land-use blueprint for Montgomery Village, the Montgomery County Airpark and surrounding neighborhoods.

County planners are set to start their work rewriting Gaithersburg East in May 2012, with approval to follow in the summer or fall of 2014.

The 2030 Vision committee meetings are set for:

  • March 21 and 23, to focus on the Montgomery Village Center shopping center
  • April 11 and 12, the Montgomery Village Professional Center and the vacant parcel at Lost Knife Road and Montgomery Village Avenue
  • May 19 and 23, the Montgomery Village golf course


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