Long-awaited Columbia downtown planned

The heart of Maryland’s large 1960s town is getting a new urban plan and form-based code to govern 30 years of growth. While many were involved with the largest new urban charrette in history, in Biloxi, another design effort with historic significance was underway in Columbia, Maryland, in mid-October. The 1960s master-planned town of about 90,000 residents, where the late town founder Jim Rouse is still revered, is looking to transform its downtown. Rouse envisioned a vibrant urban center — albeit with modernist planning — which never materialized. Instead the community got an enclosed shopping mall and office buildings, all very auto-oriented. A six-lane arterial road traverses the town center’s 500-acre site. Design Collective of Baltimore, a new urbanist firm, was hired by Howard County to create a 30-year plan for the town center through a public charrette process. More than a thousand people attended over the course of a week, Matt D’Amico, principal of Design Collective, told New Urban News. What came out of the session was remarkable, D’Amico says — a plan for up to 5,500 housing units and over five million square feet of office/retail space. Just two years ago, developer General Growth Properties (GGP) was

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