geographic scale ) and , therefore , how daunting it would be to attempt it over a 500-square-mile county .
But , then reality sunk in : only option three had a chance . And so we said , as prudent planners sometimes say with their Chairman ’ s full support : “ What the heck ! Let ’ s just go for it .” And so we did .
Fortunately for us all , the soft breezes of serendipity already were in play .
Serendipity 1 : Propitious Location
Montgomery County inherits a geography that is uniquely coherent with regard to the four primary elements that influence the shape of the built environment : rivers and ridges in the natural environment and roads and rails in the built environment .
The jurisdiction is bounded on its east and west sides by two parallel rivers , the Patuxent and the Potomac , with a generally parallel mass of higher land across the space between them . The primary regional road and rail lines run north-south through the center of this land between the rivers , and early settlements formed at points along these travel pathways , including Bethesda , Rockville , Gaithersburg , and Germantown .
In 1960 , a vision for the future of the metropolitan region was promulgated by the National Capital Regional Planning Commission in its “ Year 2000 Plan .” This starfish development pattern was a perfect match for the geographic legacy of Montgomery County ’ s portion of this region .
In 1964 , the Planning Board adopted a General Plan called “ The Wedges and Corridors Plan ” that extrapolated its historical “ corridor of towns ” into a corridor of cities , including a new one , Clarksburg , and it labeled as “ wedges ” most of the land between the edges of the corridor city spine and the two boundary rivers .
Thus , by 1979 , this local jurisdiction manifested a possibly unique coherence among the five dominant factors that shape the built environment : its river basins , its land topography , its access routes , its historical development , and its officially-adopted future land use plan ( with its innovative , but still-undefined , new wedge category ).
Serendipity 2 : Propitious Context
In 1962 , Rachel Carson ’ s book Silent Spring spawned a new global awareness of the looming dangers that human actions were posing for the planet ’ s natural resource base . By 1970 , Earth Day had provided a national focus for continuing concern . By 1979 , The American Farmland Trust and others had gathered evidence of how rapidly good farmland soil was being depleted across the USA .
Public recognition was just beginning to emerge at national scale about the now recognized fact that the absence of urban development over a natural landscape was not just a negative emptiness . The wedges of the 1969-adopted General Plan no longer needed to be seen as empty vacuums , defined primarily by their absence of development as they were thought of when the regional plan was invented in 1960 . Rather , they now could be seen as living landscapes , defined by the ecology of their flora and fauna , and by the role of this biota base in sustaining human life .
Serendipity 3 : Propitious Precedent
In the early 1970s , the State of Maryland declared a moratorium on new sewer services in the county , until environmental dangers from overflowing sewer lines could be rectified . This led to the County Executive developing a plan for a new sewage treatment plant at Dickerson , as far up the Potomac as possible within the county ’ s jurisdiction . It ’ s location required construction of a force main , or pressurized sewer line , north from Rockville to Dickerson , running directly through a major wedge in the General Plan . It was never built , but the prospect had repercussions .
Recognizing the threat of development pressures the sewer main posed , and charged with implementing this General Plan , the Staff and Planning Board succeeded in persuading the County Council ( with its first-time majority of planning-oriented progressives ) to reduce the residential density of most of the wedge areas to a five-acre minimum lot size from its previous zoning of scattered small lot sizes ( 0.5-2.0 acres ).
This action came only after a heated political debate , but it did leave a lasting memory — perhaps especially among residents of the wedge areas — to the effect that monetary profits from future urban development of rural land were not assured . In retrospect , how significant may this action have been in reducing political opposition to the more drastic downzoning that came later with the introduction of the Ag Reserve Plan with its 25-acre minimum residential lot size ?
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