Town Center Master Plan

The Rockville Mayor and City Council hosted a public hearing and a work session on the Town Center Master Plan on December 9. The full agenda packet, which includes staff’s presentation to the Mayor and Council, can be viewed here. A video recording of the meeting may be viewed here.

During the public hearing portion of the meeting, individuals and organizations had the opportunity to present their feedback on the draft Plan to the elected body for their consideration. The Mayor and Council opted to keep the record open until the adoption of the plan, for any additional comments from the public. If you have not provided your thoughts on the Plan but would like to do so, please send your comments via email to mayorandcouncil@rockvillemd.gov and carbon copy comprehensiveplan@rockvillemd.gov.

During the work session, staff gave a presentation with questions on nine topical areas, asking the Mayor and Council for direction on how to proceed with changes to the development of the plan. The Mayor and Council provided valuable feedback and requested staff perform research on some items and return with additional options and recommendations on other items.

Staff will return to the Mayor and Council for further work sessions to discuss four topics in more depth:

Two additional work sessions have been scheduled for Monday, December 16 and Monday, January 6 to allow for further discussion. Both meetings will begin at 6:30 p.m. and take place in a hybrid fashion – the community may attend and/or participate in the meeting either in person at Rockville City Hall, or virtually via Webex. The agenda packet for the meeting will be uploaded to the Agenda Center of the city’s website approximately 10 days before the meeting.  

Given the addition of additional work sessions, the latest schedule for the Plan’s adoption is as follows: 

The Mayor and Council hosted a public hearing on the Town Center Master Plan on October 28. At this meeting, individuals and organizations had the opportunity to present their feedback on the draft Plan to the elected body for their consideration. Staff also gave a presentation with an overview of the Plan and the major changes since the first draft was released in April. View the full agenda packet, which includes staff’s presentation to the Mayor and Council.

After public testimony ended, the Mayor and Council opted to keep the record open for additional comments from the public. If you haven’t testified with your thoughts on the Plan but would like to, please send your comments via email to mayorandcouncil@rockvillemd.gov and carbon copy comprehensiveplan@rockvillemd.gov. Once a closing date for accepting additional public testimony is determined, we will share that on the Engage Rockville page.

Following discussion at the October 28 meeting, an additional public hearing has been added to the schedule. This public hearing will take place on Monday, December 9. This meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. and take place in a hybrid fashion – the community may attend and/or participate in the meeting either in person at Rockville City Hall, or virtually via Webex. The agenda packet for the meeting will be uploaded to the Agenda Center of the city’s website approximately 10 days before the meeting.

Given the addition of this meeting, the latest schedule for the Plan’s adoption is as follows:

This week staff created and published three documents to assist the community in reviewing the draft Plan. These resources are designed to assist the community with understanding the changes that were made to the Plan through the Planning Commission’s review cycle and summarize the opportunities for engagement that have taken place so far. We encourage you to review the following documents:

While these documents are hyperlinked in this news feed post, they can also be accessed under the “Reports & Documents” tab on the right sidebar of the Engage Rockville page.

On September 25 the Planning Commission approved the draft Town Center Master Plan and authorized its transmittal to the Mayor and Council. This is a major milestone in the process, which officially moves the project on to its final phase: seeking adoption by the Mayor and Council. A copy of the Planning Commission approved copy of the Town Center Master Plan can be found here.

The Planning Commission’s approved draft will be brought before the Mayor and Council on three separate occasions. The current anticipated schedule is as follows:

Our Draft Plan Feedback Form remains live if you have any thoughts or comments to provide on the Planning Commission approved draft. Alternatively, you can also send feedback to comprehensiveplan@rockvillemd.gov.

Have you been tracking the Planning Commission’s review of the Town Center Master Plan? If not, don’t fret – this newsfeed post will bring you up to speed!

The Planning Commission has reviewed and discussed the draft Town Center Master Plan four times so far: an introductory meeting on June 26, a public hearing on July 10, and work sessions on August 14 and September 11. The Planning Commission is scheduled to approve their draft of the Plan and transmit it to the Mayor and Council at their September 25 meeting. The September 25 meeting starts at 7 p.m. and is hybrid – if you’d like to attend you can join at City Hall or tune in remotely via Webex. The draft of the Plan that the Planning Commission is considering approving can be found here.

Planning Commission approval is not the final step in this process – the Plan also needs to be adopted by the Mayor and Council. If the Planning Commission does indeed approve the Plan at the September 25 meeting, staff anticipate the following schedule for review and adoption by the Mayor and Council:

Comprehensive Planning staff will update this page and send out another news blast after the September 25 Planning Commission meeting informing the community of the meeting’s result. If the Plan is approved at that meeting, staff will also provide a link to view the approved Plan for the public to review.

If you haven't already, please complete the Draft Plan Feedback Form on Engage Rockville to provide your thoughts on the Plan. Completing this form informs staff of the community’s perspective and helps staff bring these perspectives to each approval body in an organized way.

As always, feel free to reach out to comprehensiveplan@rockvillemd.gov with any questions or comments on the Plan and this process.

UPDATE: The Planning Commission work session has been rescheduled to Wednesday, August 14 at 7 pm. This meeting will take place in person at Rockville City Hall. There will be no online component of this meeting. For additional information about this meeting, please contact comprehensiveplan@rockvillemd.gov.

The weather is heating up and so are things with the Town Center Master Plan! Since releasing the draft Plan in April, city staff have been meeting with stakeholders, community groups, and members of the public to talk about the Plan’s goals, policies and actions. We will be hosting two public meetings to share the Plan’s recommendations and to talk about WMATA’s concept for improvements to the Rockville Metro Station. Join us on one of the following dates to learn more about both projects:

The next step in the process is to bring the Plan to the Planning Commission for their review and approval. It is anticipated that the Plan will come before the Planning Commission at least four times. Staff currently anticipate the following schedule for the Planning Commission:

If the aforementioned schedule sticks, the draft Plan, with any modifications as instructed by the Planning Commission, will be introduced to the Mayor and Council in late September/early October.

Don’t forget to complete the Draft Plan Feedback Form on Engage Rockville to provide your thoughts on the Plan. Completing this form, in addition to any public testimony or attending a public meeting, helps staff understand the community’s perspective and helps staff bring these perspectives to each approval body in an organized way.

The Comprehensive Planning team is pleased to announce that a draft of the 2024 Town Center Master Plan is now available for public review and comment. You can view the Plan here - it is a large document, so it may take a couple of minutes to load. The Plan includes 59 recommended actions that address the goals laid out within the Plan:

The Draft Plan Feedback Form is now live on the Engage Rockville site. After you’ve had an opportunity to read through the draft plan, please let us know your thoughts through that feedback form. Additionally, we will be scheduling a series of public meetings to review and gather feedback on the draft plan’s recommendations in early June. We are also working on scheduling the Planning Commission public hearing on the draft plan, which provides yet another opportunity for feedback. This will most likely take place in July. We will update the Engage Rockville page once all of these meeting dates are confirmed.

We are so appreciative that you’ve stuck around for this master planning process, but we’re not done yet. Your feedback is essential to make sure this draft is on the right path, or if any modifications are necessary before we bring the plan before the Mayor and Council. Have questions or want to set up some time to chat with staff? You can reach Comprehensive Planning staff at any time by emailing comprehensiveplan@rockvillemd.gov.

The City of Rockville Comprehensive Planning team has been busy over the past month hosting a series of roundtable discussions bringing together representatives from organizations representing various demographic and stakeholder groups. Overall, there will be a total eleven roundtables.

A photo from our Affordable Housing Roundtable

Our team has also visited every residence (nearly 2,000 of them!) within Town Center to leave a doorhanger letting residents know that the Town Center Master Plan is happening and how they can get involved. We couldn’t get into every multi-family building, but if you didn’t get a doorhanger, check out your mailroom where there might be a pile!

Survey closing on August 18!

Continue to share your thoughts anytime by using a variety of feedback tools available on the project’s Engage Rockville webpage until August 18. The webpage has a survey, reaction map, question and answer box, and idea board.

After August 18, we will begin crunching the numbers and putting together a comprehensive report summarizing what we heard from the past four months of community outreach and engagement.

Did you know?

Town Center’s housing stock is overwhelmingly multi-family buildings with more than 20 units. Most of the residences (74.7%) are renter-occupied with a very low rental vacancy rate (1.2%), as of 2021. Nearly half of homes in Town Center were built after 2000 and nearly half are one-bedroom units. Median rents are about average for the region at $1,762, but the median sale price is a bit lower than elsewhere at $388,100, given the prominence of condo units. This has still left 36% of homeowners and 42% of renters paying more than 30% of their income for housing, meaning that they are housing cost-burdened. This shows there is a strong need to address housing affordability in Town Center.

Coming Up

Over the next few months, planning staff will be: