Kensington Sector Plan

When I move to a new area, I do my best to read up on what's going on there. When I moved to Kensington, I found out that the town is working on the new Kensington and vicinity "Sector Plan." I had no idea what this was, but it sounded something straight out of Star Trek! Upon further reading, it's basically an updated version of a 1978 plan for the town. (Why do the late 70's seem to keep appearing on this blog?)

The new plan, still in draft form, looks at the following:

• land uses
• zones
• design
• transportation
• the environment
• community facilities such as schools, libraries, police and fire stations

The county has a pretty cool website designated to this project. Click here to check it out. On the site you can also read the full version of the plan, which is pretty interesting if you're a development, planning, and transit geek like yours truly.

I'd love to see a map of the changes in the town between 1978 and 2009- not much seems like it was built in the 1980 or 1990s, and the downtown core near the MARC station is perfect for some walkable mixed-use development. Please, no more car-focused strip malls!

From what I've seen so far, it seems like the Maryland-National Capitol Park and Planning Commission (someone please re-name this!) is an incredible community resource that has been very helpful in spearheading this process.

If I ever write a Star Trek episode, I will be sure to have Kirk say "Scotty, beam us down to the Kensington Sector!"