As the urban hub's build out continues planning officials move to increase density to accommodate future growth
As I wrote last February (in what turned out to be the site's most popular post), downtown Bethesda is in the middle of a huge building boom with a number of development projects recently completed or currently under construction. In light of this flurry of development activity, the Montgomery County Planning Commission is in the process of rewriting the downtown area's sector plan (last rewritten in 1994) to accommodate the urban district's tremendous growth now and into the future. Among other things, the new plan seeks to: improve and increase the amount of public space, add a "greenway," increase the number of affordable housing units, improve connectivity (pedestrian, transit, bicycle, and auto), and focus growth in certain areas. Last December, preliminary concepts were presented by planning staff to the planning board for review. Between 2010 and 2040 the Bethesda downtown district was projected to add 14,200 jobs and 5,300 households. To help accommodate this growth, planning staff proposed raising height limits and increasing density in a number of specific areas of the urban district. Below is a map of these new height limits:
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| Blue - Symbolic Center and Civic Gathering Spaces Red - Expanded/Emerging Centers of Activity Yellow - Affordable Housing, Park Connectivity and Community Facilities Green - Eastern Greenway |
During the zoning rewrite process (which is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year), different landowners and developers were encouraged by planning staff to discuss plans or submit ideas for their sites, and how they thought the new sector plan should accommodate them.
