Activists’ Guide to Surviving the Planning Board

A cooperative group of communities and citizens constitute the Indian Head Highway Area Action Council, Inc. and they work across community boundaries on quality of life and planning issues. They have recently updated and distributed their  Activists’ Guide. With upcoming meetings  and the slew of plans in the pipeline at Park and Planning, this may [...]

Public Input 101–FAIL

The new Mixed-Use Zone legislation’s progress has slowed down somewhat and M-NCPPC has heard from enough people about the lack of public input, that hey, they decided to do more! During the last week of school and on a Monday night, yippee! Hopefully you have received this postcard inviting you to a meeting next Monday, [...]

Buy Local: Shop, Eat & Drink

This holiday season keep your hard-earned dollars in the community and working for you by spending locally.
You can have an impact. Shifting even a small amount of your spending from chains to locally owned businesses can have a major impact on the local economy. According to a new study, in Western Michigan, if the [...]

Countywide Visioning Process Launches

Friday brought the second one-day economic outlook forum called “Envision Prince George’s” sponsored by the Prince George’s County Planning Department of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), along with the Prince George’s County Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and Prince George’s County government. And while the morning was interesting and worthwhile, the afternoon presentations [...]

Updating the Route 1 Sector Plan

Planner Chad Williams of M-NCPPC will make a presentation on the Central US 1 Corridor Sector Plan and Sectional Map Amendment on Monday for the University Park Town Council (event details here). The public is invited and Mayor John Tabori hopes residents of neighboring communities will attend as well.
Williams will discuss the possibility of extending [...]

Last? East Campus Meeting

UPDATE: Portions of the presentation from this meeting are now available, including the PowerPoint with a look at the architecture. Check our Events page–if you missed the meeting, you have another chance. Time to start thinking about the $180 million dollar question: do taxpayers wish to foot the bill (through a TIF) for [...]

From Our Inbox: East Campus & College Towns

East Campus Steering Committee meetings have had a number of careful observers. Many agree that three divergent tracks–the university’s goals, the community’s concerns and the developer’s interest in the bottom line–have not coalesced. This may be attributable to a backwards process. The Steering Committee’s work has been akin to a rushed, project-specific visioning process, something [...]

East Campus Committee Update & Meeting

The final East Campus community input meeting takes place Monday, January 28 at 7:30. The group will discuss principles to guide the East Campus development. We strongly encourage members of surrounding communities to attend and to pass any questions to a community rep. Committee contact info here.
Foulger-Pratt/Argo, the developers of the East Campus project, [...]

Give a Gift To Our Economy: Shop Locally Owned This Holiday Season

by Stacy Mitchell

Our successful event with Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher with the New Rules Project, a couple weeks ago did not yield viable audio, but we can offer the slide show (you will need to hit pause between slides) and the article below which makes many of the points discussed. And to help you shop [...]

Reminder: Stacy Mitchell on Connecting Retail & Growth to Community

Wednesday, November 28
7 pm Refreshments
7:30 pm Talk & Discussion
Hyattsville City Hall
4310 Gallatin St., Hyattsville MD 301-985-5000
Remember, we invited you? Join us.
As growth in the Route 1 corridor accelerates, what can we learn from other communities? How can we avoid becoming Anyplace USA? Can we use retail as a catalyst for good community development? [...]

Listen Up

The standing room only Route 1 Development Forum hosted by Council Members Campos, Dernoga and Olson began a conversation that is long overdue in our area, gathering our elected representatives with planners, school and state highway officials in one room to talk with their constituents about growth. Unsurprisingly, schools and traffic surfaced as the community’s [...]

Campus & Community

The developers of East Campus are charged with creating an instant college town that will allow the University of Maryland to attract the faculty and students necessary to become one of the country’s top ten research universities. However, the project’s potential to act as a development catalyst for the area in a multiplicity of ways: [...]

You’re Invited: Connecting Retail & Growth to Community

with Stacy Mitchell of the New Rules Project
Wednesday, November 28
7 pm Refreshments , 7:30 pm Talk & Discussion
Hyattsville City Hall, 4310 Gallatin St., 301-985-5000
Given the fast pace of new projects in the Route 1 corridor, we th0ught it might be time for us to step back, draw a breath and look at how [...]

Ah, Route 1 on the Riviera

We are back from our luxurious sojourn on the Riviera where we never thought a bit about traffic on Route 1, pedestrian safety, transit, TIFs and school seats.
OK, we lied. We have been thinking and meeting incessantly about all of the above and just have not had time to report back. So, a quick round [...]

Ann Arbor Lessons

As we contemplate the changes that East Campus will bring to College Park, it is worth learning from other college towns. Insights into a Lively Downtown may provide both ideas for remaking the existing downtown and the correct scale for East Campus. This runs 20 minutes and sometimes states the obvious…on [...]