County Executive Budgets for Route 40 Design Manual

We have been talking in this space for many months about the need for comprehensive commercial zoning and design planning in Howard County. This has been talked about in the context of Marc Norman's charge to take Council Bill 58 to referendum. The battle over how best to achieve holistic commercial zoning in the County has spilled over to the Letter to the Editor pages of County publications, including a back and forth between myself and former Council member Angela Beltram.

It looks like the discussion is paying dividends. County Executive Ken Ulman is proposing $100,000 in the budget for a consultant to draft a Route 40 Design Manual. Council member Courtney Watson engaged Ulman and the DPZ to compel Ulman to decide that an outside consultant should be brought in to write the manual. This is exactly the kind of thing I have been calling for all along and I'm very pleased to see that it may well make the final cut of the budget.

Howard County Times Weighs In on Route 40

With letters from several sources on the subject of Council Bill 58, Route 40 Corridor planning, and comprehensive commercial land use planning in the County, the Howard County Times has weighed in on the subject.

[T]he two (recommendations made by the 21 person Route 40 Corridor planning working group) that are arguably the most crucial -- implementing change through comprehensive zoning and the completion of the design manual that will guide development -- aren't done yet. The task force identified both as short-term (i.e. less than two years from the issuance of the recommendations) objectives.

As critical as the timely redevelopment of Columbia's Town Center is to the county's future, it remains a long-term proposition, with much remaining to be hashed out before real progress on that front can be realized.

Officials must not forget the county's other economic center and should work to regain the momentum the task force established four years ago.

This is something that anyone for the CB58 referendum and I can agree to and fight for now.