Kentlands, Gaithersburg, Maryland
Kentlands is a neighborhood of the U.S. city of Gaithersburg, Maryland. Kentlands was one of the first attempts to develop a community using Traditional Neighborhood Design planning techniques (also known as 'neo-traditional new town planning') that are now generally referred to under the rubric of the New Urbanism. (The New Urbanism is the concept of building a walkable, mixed-use city neighborhood or new town to provide an attractive alternative to the spread out, automobile-centric, subdivisions common to post-World War II American suburbia.) Kentlands is built around a farmstead previously owned by Otis Beall Kent. The development, begun in 1988, contains buildings from the original Kentlands farm, many varieties of residences, a "downtown" commercial district, open space including protected natural areas and pocket parks, and civic uses including schools, a church, clubhouse, pool, tennis and basketball courts, catering facility, and an arts center. Overview The town has a system of artificial lakes that snakes through the community. There are jogging trails that run through the parks and districts of the neighborhood, and the community's commercial areas and the facilities operated by the Assembly, which include swimming pools, tennis courts, playgrounds, performance spaces, and a large clubhouse, are all within walking distance. Kentlands is divided into several districts, including "Old Farm", built around the historic mansion and the Kentlands Village Square; "Gatehouse", named after the farm's entry gatehouse, which has been reconstructed; the "Hill Districts"; the "Lakes Districts"; "Kentlands Bluff"; "Midtown/Main Street"; "Market Square"; and "Kentlands Square". The winding street layout is based on a grid pattern, varied as necessary by the requirements of Kentlands topography. Multiple open green spaces and pocket parks have been developed where land was available between the districts or in odd spaces near buildings and dwellings. Market Square, Kentlands Square, and the Boulevard Shops are commercial districts with grocery stores, banks, boutiques, offices, stores, dozens of restaurants, and a 10-screen cinema cafe. Main Street is a mixed-use area with distinctive "live-work" buildings with retail and office uses on the lower floors and residential uses on the upper floors. City planners, public officials, business owners, and neighborhood residents recently worked with urban designers from the HOK global architecture firm at the 'Kentlands Commercial District Charrette,' in which a plan was developed for an intensified mixed-use and transit-oriented 'Downtown Kentlands.' The proposals developed in the charrette are now winding their way through the City of Gaithersburg's master planning process. Kentlands, along with its sister community Lakelands, is among the largest and arguably most successful of the New Urbanist projects. More than 8,000 residents now live in Kentlands and Lakelands, with office and commercial development totaling more than . Rachel Carson Elementary School is at one entrance to the community and Lakelands Park Middle School divides the newer development of Lakelands from the former National Geographic complex that is adjacent to it, now occupied by Montgomery County Regional Services Center and the Montgomery County Liquor Control Board Warehouse. Throughout the year, community events take place in and around the Kentlands