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Maryland
''Reality Check Plus'' Report Looks at How Maryland Can Preserve Open Space, Boost Denser Development
''People are tired of natural areas being paved over, tired of sitting in traffic, tired of overcrowded schools, tired of worrying that there won't be enough drinking water or that it's contaminated,'' said 1000 Friends of Maryland Executive Director Dru Schmidt-Perkins of a new report on the need for greater state efforts to boost denser development and save farmland at faster rates than currently planned or permitted by current zoning.
Released as the electorate wrangles over growth, with rivals for local and state offices stressing its benefits or drawbacks, notes Baltimore Sun reporter Timothy B. Wheeler, the report summarizes ideas from four ''Reality Check Plus'' visioning workshops in May and June, attended by some 850 officials, planners, developers and community activists.
Held jointly by 1000 Friends of Maryland, the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, and the Baltimore council of the Washington-based Urban Land Institute (ULI), the workshops produced a general agreement that the nation's fifth most densely populated state -- its population of 5.5 million projected to reach 7 million by 2030 -- should concentrate much of this growth within the Baltimore and Washington beltways, in transit corridors and in other designated areas.
With national military base realignment expected to bring in 28,000 households and 45,000 jobs within 10 years, workshop leaders acknowledged that the shift toward higher densities won't be politically popular. ''There is some disconnect between that desire (to concentrate development) and what happens on the ground,'' observed the report's primary author, Smart Growth Research and Education Associate Director John W. Frece. ''There are two things people don't like -- one is sprawl, and the other is density.''
Home Builders Association of Maryland executive Vice President John Kortecamp and Maryland Planning Secretary Audrey E. Scott agreed, both appreciative of the reality check workshops and the report. The former welcomed the call for development ''in areas that can and should support it, meaning where there's good transit of various sorts'' and for ''a connection between jobs and housing that currently does not exist.'' The latter said the state can only educate and work with localities protective of their land use control, adding, ''You're not going to change people's minds overnight, but it's a start.''
Smart growth advocates expect the report to help the public debate and crystallize policy recommendations for compact development, the reporter writes, once again quoting Director Frece. ''This is not a substitute for sophisticated planning. This is the result of bringing together 80 laymen from all walks of life,'' he stressed. ''It is a very crude sort of measurement, but I think it gives an indication of a direction.'' Baltimore Sun 9/26/2006
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