The Valleys Planning Council

For more than four decades, the Valleys Planning Council has been at the forefront of land use planning and preservation techniques in northwestern Baltimore County. Our efforts have yielded lasting, positive impacts that will serve residents for generations to come.

On the Radar

Columbia Gas Line Expansion: Public Meetings May 8 & 9

Columbia Gas is preparing an application for an extension of its existing pipeline corridor stretching from Owings Mills (Baltimore County)...

+ Read more

Latest News from the Valleys

Columbia Gas Line Expansion

Columbia Gas is planning to widen its existing pipeline corridor that stretches from Owings Mills to Fallston (Harford County). They plan to expand the width of the 21-mile corridor from its current 50′ to 75′, and are currently evaluating a 200′ corridor to identify the best route. Their plan is to have a dual pipeline for this segment to provide redundancy needed to ensure steady and reliable service.

There is currently a dual line stretching from Ellicott City to 795, where it then continues as a single line to Fallston. The existing corridor runs through Stevenson University and Rosewood, the VA cemetery, Hunting Tweed subdivision, Caves Golf Course, Chestnut Ridge Country Store, across Greenspring Avenue to Ridge Road, through the Beaverbrooke subdivision, across Falls Road and the Dellwood Court subdivision, into Oregon Ridge Park, through Hayfileds Country Club, then turns north along I-83 through Loveton before continuing west towards Harford County...

+ Continue Reading

Looking Back

The Early Days of the VPC

By William C. Trimble, Jr.

The late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed the virtually untrammeled expansion of residential real estate development in Baltimore County. The best efforts of a professionally- staffed Office of Planning and Zoning were often rendered ineffective by the coordinated actions of developers, some compliant county politicians, and a handful of attorneys .

Grinnell W. Locke, a local architect who resided in the Greenspring Valley, recognized the threat posed by such development to the unique and beautiful agricultural open space, consisting of the floors of the Greenspring, Caves, and Worthington Valleys–which was then squarely in the sights of real estate developers. To protect the valleys, he conceived of a plan which would accommodate growth and limit random extension of public utilities, while preserving existing open space...

+ Continue Reading