Reality Check Plus to explore Southern Maryland’s growth

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

This three-county regional event, which starts at 1:30 p.m. that day at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, will feature a keynote address by Roger K. Lewis. Since 1984, his column on architecture and urban design, ‘‘Shaping the City,” has appeared in The Washington Post. He is a practicing architect and a professor of architecture at University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, which he helped to start.

The afternoon sessions, to be held at the Somerset gymnasium athletic arena, will focus on the implications of growth and the implementation of a common vision. It will also include a report on the results of an invitation-only growth-visioning exercise to be held earlier that morning.

A total of 160 people — including elected officials, government staff and community, civic and business leaders from throughout Southern Maryland — will participate in that exercise using blocks to represent the increment of new homes and jobs projected to come to the three-county region by 2030. Invitees from across Southern Maryland were selected by the Southern Maryland Reality Check Plus organizing committee specifically to represent all interests throughout Charles, St. Mary’s and Calvert counties.

The cost of attending the public afternoon sessions is $15 per person. Interested attendees can register by calling 1-800-321-5011. Alternatively, registration is available via fax or mail; visit www.realitycheckmaryland.org⁄southern_region.php (see the ‘‘Event Information” page) for more detailed instructions. The fee will be waived for individuals for whom cost prevents their attendance; call 410-889-4112 to learn more.

The event is one of four regional Reality Check Plus exercises that will take place in May and June on the Eastern Shore and in Western Maryland, Central Maryland (Baltimore⁄Washington corridor) and Southern Maryland. The results from each regional event will provide the basis for a statewide vision for growth, and a subsequent report will compare this vision with existing development trends and identify the implications of our current patterns of development.

Led statewide by the Urban Land Institute’s Baltimore District Council, the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, and 1000 Friends of Maryland, Reality Check Plus will bring together a diverse group of organizations and various stakeholders, including politicians, developers, environmentalists, and business and civic leaders to consider Maryland’s future growth. A coalition of more than 100 sponsors and supporting organizations is guiding this effort, including the Home Builders Association of Maryland, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, St. Mary’s College, Marrick Properties, the Maryland chapter of the American Planning Association, the Maryland Center for Agro-Ecology, the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Interfaith Housing Alliance.

A number of other jurisdictions around the country have already launched local or regional visioning exercises. What distinguishes Reality Check Plus from previous visioning exercises in Maryland is that it is privately led, statewide and action-oriented.