Provocations from the Planning Director

The Baltimore AIA Urban Design Committee organized last week a thought provoking session about urban blueprints, planning and zoning. Rollin Stanley, Montgomery County's planning director was the keynote speaker. He was followed by a panel of a architect (Stan Britt, FAIA), a community activist (Chris Merriam), a developer (Pat Turner) and Baltimore's own Planning Director, Tom Stosur.
Stanley acted like the elephant in the China shop trashing sacred cows left and right. He began claiming E=mc2 as his invention, whereby E remained energy but m was population and c was density (instead of speed in Einstein's formula). He then reported about his activities in Toronto, St Louis and Montgomery County and managed to offend all three of these jurisdictions with his take no prisoners observations. He observed that Toronto grows by leaps and bounds and that developers don't get any breaks, incentives or tax credits there. It is the municipality that calls the shots and sets the conditions. Nobody requires any "stinking parking" for development. Regarding St Louis he noted that its growth boundaries were the Rockies and the Alleghenies while dryly noting that no discernible development occurred there when he got to that city and that he received much gratitude for the most mundane investments that he could initiate. St Louis has lost 60% of its population in 42 years.
He lamented how in Montgomery County everything is judged by how fast you can drive there. He considers the suburbs as the incarnation of the fact that the fridge replaced the cornerstore and the TV the front porch. But, he pointed out, the demographics won't work for places that are so dependent on single family homes on large lots. He described his surprise that the folks there balk at his high density visions for metro stations, even if they cover only 6% of the area.

Our local panelists showed that Baltimore is somewhere in between St Louis and Toronto with the immense developments of EBDI, Harbor East, Westport in special focus and the Remington development of the Anderson lot as an example of suburban development in the city.

with his many funny videos inserted into his slide show, Rollin Stanley proved to be an effective provocateur who brought the audience repeatedly to gasps of disbelief regarding his unguarded language but also laughter and applause.

Stanley has a blog. To see his provocations first hand ("no place is worth visiting which doesn't have a parking problem"), go to http://montgomeryplanning.org/blog-director/