REGIONALISM COMMITTEE OVERVIEW

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) Baltimore District service area includes Maryland jurisdictions of Baltimore City and Allegheny, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Dorchester, Fredrick, Garrett, Harford, Howard, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Somerset, Talbot, Washington, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties. This service area includes the cities of Annapolis, Frederick, Salisbury, and many independent municipalities. ULI Baltimore District’s “Regionalism Committee” is unique to Urban Land Institute and fulfills a cross-service area purpose.

For over a decade, ULI Baltimore’s Regionalism Committee has illuminated and contributed to solving challenges faced by the interdependent jurisdictions of the Maryland and Chesapeake Bay regions. The Regionalism Committee led ULI efforts of Reality Check; Reality Check Plus; Partnership for Building Reuse; Growing Cooler (merging Land Use and Transportation Planning); Weather It Together (addressing Sea Level Rise/Climate Change and the effects upon coastal and Chesapeake Bay communities); Affordable Housing; various workshops; and numerous Technical Assistance Panels (TAPs). In addition, the Baltimore District’s Affordable Housing Committee and TAP Committee originated from initiatives led by the Regionalism Committee. Moving forward, this committee will continue to drive solutions to the diverse challenges of Maryland’s interdependent jurisdictions and advance ULI national initiatives and priorities.

REGIONALISM COMMITTEE GOALS

• To educate members and illuminate topics of regional importance.
• To serve as an impartial moderator promoting inter-jurisdictional dialogue and cooperation.
• Equip our membership with knowledge from expert opinions on regional topics of priority.
• To leverage ULI resources to address solutions to regional challenges.
• Knowledge-share among committee members and regional public leadership.
• Create opportunities for ULI members to build relationships with regional public decision-makers.

Some reasons why members have chosen to join ULI Baltimore’s Regionalism Committee:

• “I am a previous principal of a consulting firm that moved to the government sector, and Regionalism Committee helps me stay connected to the issues that concern the private sector.”
• “I am interested in the regional-transit interjurisdictional, cooperative element.  I ride a lot of rail when I travel, and neighboring cities could benefit from connecting with other neighboring cities.”
• “I plan bike trails and how to connect open space for a living, and healthy communities and open space networks don’t stop at county lines; they link them together.”
• “I am an owner operator in the district, and I recognize the strength ULI Baltimore gains in giving equal weighed-importance to the service district (all counties in Maryland but two) that are outside of the Baltimore-metro area, and Regionalism is the committee that targets that mission advancement most.”

Past Initiatives

Reality Check Plus – “Today’s vision, Tomorrow’s Reality.” Projected growth for the State of Maryland over the next 25 years has increasingly become a concern for a broad cross-section of Maryland residents, 850 of whom participated in a unique series of four growth visioning exercises held throughout the State called Reality Check Plus (RCP).

Growing Cooler – the ULI Baltimore Regionalism Committee won a ULI Action Grant for “growing cooler” workshops which provided a “hands-on” opportunity for Maryland’s regional Planning Directors and their staff to gain new insights on how to plan future growth.