This master plan proposes the compact rural village as an alternative to low-density suburban sprawl. The site is behind a traditional, one-street Maryland town called Sandy Spring. Every Sunday, Quaker residents of the town cross the project site, passing the spring that is the town’s namesake en route to their meeting.

Recognizing the community’s affection for the land, the design team developed two alternative plans for compact villages and also an initial plan that was in compliance with the existing 2-acre zoning. The plan that complied with the existing zoning required the privatization of virtually the entire site and a build-out with large, expensive homes; the alternative village plans allowed for a variety of densities and unit sizes and provided open fields and woods between the villages. These options were reviewed by local residents and officials. Participating citizens assisted in the selection of the ultimate plan.

The design code for the villages was dictated by local vernacular architecture. Observation of nearby towns such as New Market and Brookeville showed three different approaches to placing houses along streets, lanes, and roads. As a result, the urban regulations for Sandy Spring dictate the placement of buildings according to whether they front a street, lane, or road, with few other restrictions on building type.

Wyndcrest, located at the main entrance to Sandy Spring, was the first neighborhood and a hopeful demonstration for the remainder of the 200 acres of undeveloped land contiguous to Wyndcrest. The Montgomery County Planning Commission adopted a new Rural Village and Rural Neighborhood zone based on the charrette conducted many years earlier by DPZ, but adopted it without any “teeth.” They approved the density, but not the design implementation requirements. The investor chose to sell the whole piece to a developer, who eventually sold it to another developer, who is only now in the process of settling on it to do a conventional sprawl subdivision.

project tearsheet: 358 Kb PDF file