Planning — April 2010

National Planning Landmark Award

Plan for the Valleys, Baltimore County, Maryland

By Ruth Eckdish Knack, AICP

A year after the late David Wallace, AICP, was named a National Planning Pioneer, his firm's pathbreaking Plan for the Valleys has won APA's National Planning Landmark Award. This document "provided the foundation for resource conservation zoning, land preservation, and growth management in Baltimore County [Maryland]," wrote Teresa Moore, executive director of nonprofit The Valleys Planning Council, in support of the award. The landmark award "recognizes a planning project, initiative, or endeavor that is historically significant" (at least 25 years old) and still usable.

In the early 1960s, the Philadelphia firm of Wallace, McHarg, Roberts & Todd (now WRT) was asked to prepare a long-range development plan for the Green Spring and Worthington valleys, a largely rural area about 75 miles northwest of Baltimore that was experiencing significant growth pressure. The planning team, led by Ian McHarg (recognized as a planning pioneer in 1997), came up with a solution based on the area's unique combination of ecological features, including wooded plateaus, steep slopes, and forested valley walls. To redirect growth, the planners recommended a bundle of techniques that included growth boundaries, limits on sewer and water expansion, conservation design, and restrictive zoning.

Moore noted that the plan "put Baltimore County decades ahead of other jurisdictions in the field of growth management and enabled the county to enact an effective growth boundary in the late '60s that remains intact today." 

The 1963 long-range development plan encouraged the restriction of public water and sewer service in the valleys and directed growth away from the valley walls and steep slopes. It recommended that restrictive zoning be adopted to protect not just the valleys but all of the county's rural areas, and it encouraged the use of conservation easements. As a result, a total of two-thirds of Baltimore County's 600 square miles have been preserved as farmland or open space, wrote county planning director Arnold Keller, referring to the 10 resource conservation zones that followed from the plan.

In 1967, the county adopted an urban-rural demarcation line that clearly delineated areas that were eligible for public water and sewer service — and those that should be protected. A decade later, it created an agricultural zone. Today, 90 percent of the county's population lives within that growth boundary, but it occupies just one-third of the land.

The Valleys Planning Council, which commissioned the plan, continues to monitor land use in the valleys. In 2008, it succeeded in persuading the county to adopt special design standards for local rural roads, thus helping to maintain the pastoral character. The plan "has stood the test of time," said Keller. "What has been done in the valleys is an important contribution to planning efforts, municipally and regionally. It has had a significant influence on planning everywhere in the country," adds juror Ron Thomas, AICP, a regional planner in the Chicago area.

Ruth Eckdish Knack is the executive editor of Planning.

Resouces

Images: The jury's take:'At a regional level, this is a classic piece of work.' Photo courtesy Valleys Planning Council.