Planning chief leaves with sense of Baltimore's past and future

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Aug 15, 2008 by Robbie Whelan

A small, clay topographic model of the city of Rome, about one foot square, sits on a table in the office of Baltimore planning director Douglas B. McCoach, not far from a large reprint of another Roman city plan, complete with Renaissance-era flourishes, hanging on the wall.

"All planners love Rome," he said. "It's 2,000 years old, and it's got great public spaces. People there really know how to live in their city. Baltimore is only 250 years old and I think we're still learning how to live in our city."

It's this sense of learning, of fruitful interaction with the city of Baltimore and respect for its history, that McCoach hopes is shared by whomever succeeds him after he resigns Friday.

McCoach announced two weeks ago that he will step down to take a position at RTKL, the architectural firm where he was a designer for 23 years before becoming planning director, and to prepare to send his two teenage daughters to college. His replacement has not been selected.

In an e-mailed statement, Mayor Sheila Dixon said McCoach had "acclimated quickly" to his position and had been key to several projects, including the Middle Branch Master Plan and the Key Highway Waterfront Master Plan.

For the last 19 months, McCoach has overseen an agency that is meant to help the city incorporate urban design concepts into its development policy. His tenure has included some of the highest- profile projects in the history of Baltimore.

His legacy, according to those who have worked with him, will be that of a planner who made the city's design process more thorough by involving as many stakeholders as possible in discussing each project, and who emphasized sustainability and green building within the Planning Department.

In 2007, McCoach helped negotiate a controversy among residents of South Baltimore's Federal Hill, Riverside and Locust Point neighborhoods and developer Richard Swirnow, who had proposed building several luxury condominium towers that would have obstructed local residents' views and cordoned off much of the waterfront for private use.

"I realized that we had two groups -- a community and a development group -- that just were not able to communicate," he said.

In the end, he said, it was solid design, including liberal allocations for open space and uninterrupted water views on two of Swirnow's most prominent waterfront parcels, that solved the problem.

"Without that design moment, we'd still be fighting," McCoach said.

For East Baltimore's Canton Crossing, a large mixed-use development being built by First Mariner Bancorp CEO Edwin F. Hale Sr., McCoach had his planning commission review the project six times, rejiggering Hale's retail component and pushing for higher- density development.

Hale said of McCoach: "He's got a practical view of things that I thought was very helpful as a developer."

McCoach said that the Middle Branch of the Patapsco, which is facing over $2 billion in investment in waterfront development, is one of the projects he was proudest to help plan.

"I think [the Middle Branch] is every bit as significant as the Inner Harbor was in the 1970s," McCoach said. "It's the biggest opportunity this city has had in a generation."

Some critics of recent development policies point to the recently announced plan to build a new arena on the site of the existing 1st Mariner Arena.

Gilbert Thomas of Marks, Thomas Architects is co-chairman of the AIABaltimore Urban Design Committee, a nonprofit advisory panel that in April recommended strongly against building on the site, arguing that opening up the street grid downtown by demolishing 1st Mariner and building the arena on a different site would be a double benefit for the city.

"We had our input, and [there was] a decision, and we're not sure why it was made, and we've moved on," Thomas said.

But McCoach, who said he saw "a lot of potential" in another proposed arena site, the Carroll-Camden Industrial Area, defended the Planning Department's recommendation for the old arena site.

"If we're going to invest a couple hundred million bucks in a new arena, the best thing we can do is make sure there's a lot of spinoff, restaurants and entertainment," he said. "What we don't need is to strike out with another area."