A park within a ten-minute walk of every Richmonder. Reconnecting Jackson Ward by “capping” over the highway that currently slices it in two. The creation of a “grand crescent park” in Scott’s Addition.

These are just a few of the ideas proposed in Richmond 300, a master plan for the city’s growth that was approved by City Council in December 2020.

On Thursday, Martiza Mercado Pechin, the project manager and lead author of Richmond 300, will speak at the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design as part of its Re-Think Design lecture series. In her talk, Pechin will discuss urban planning and the future of Richmond.

The product of three years of development and engagement with more than 8,500 Richmonders, Richmond 300 is intended to be a living document that guides the city’s development through 2037, Richmond’s tricentennial.

“We asked ourselves, when the city turns 300, how do we want it to look and feel?” explains Pechin, who now works as the director of development for Thalhimer Realty Partners. “What can we do in the next 20 years to help us move towards that goal, knowing that everything can’t change, but a lot can.”

As Pechin notes, 20 years prior to the adoption of Richmond 300, Nokia was the largest cell phone provider, Blockbuster dominated the movie rental market and Richmond didn’t have a folk festival.

The plan offers six “Big Moves” for the city: rewrite the zoning ordinance; rewrite priority growth nodes, targeting certain areas of the city for job and population growth; expand housing opportunities; provide greenways and parks for all; reconnect the city by “capping” highways that destroyed neighborhoods when they were installed; and realign city facilities so that city-owned buildings provide better and more accessible services.

Richmond 300 aims to provide a pathway for growth and reinvestment in the city.

“The document is used to guide redevelopment, to guide city zoning approvals and ordinances and to guide the city’s capital budget,” says Pechin, who previously led Innovative Finance and Delivery Technical Assistance for the Build America Bureau at the U.S. Department of Transportation, was a deputy planning director for Richmond and worked as a planner with consulting firm AECOM.

Among other recommendations, the plan offers six “big moves” for the city: rewrite the zoning ordinance; rewrite priority growth nodes, targeting certain areas of the city for job and population growth; expand housing opportunities; provide greenways and parks for all; reconnect the city by “capping” highways that destroyed neighborhoods when they were installed; and realign city facilities so that city-owned buildings provide better and more accessible services.

“If the city can work on advancing these six things in the next five years, the city will be in a good place,” says Pechin.

As evidence of how well the planning process engaged Richmonders, Pechin says she was pleased when someone referenced Richmond 300 during the recent debate about whether the city would allow a casino within its limits; a citizen commented that a casino in one of the proposed locations wouldn’t align with the master plan.

“I want people to see it as theirs because it is theirs,” Pechin says of Richmond 300. “Planning documents sit on a shelf when people don’t own them, and the fact that so many Richmonders feel like they own Richmond 300 means that the document is going to continue to be used and referenced and implemented until we update it again.”

As for her lecture, Pechin hopes it will lead attendees to think more critically about the cityscape around them and participate in conversations about its future.

“Have you ever thought about why sidewalks are where they are, or why a park is here and not there, or why these streets have apartments on them and those streets have retail on them?” she says. “Those are all decisions that people have made over time to shape our places. Come and learn a little bit about how that happens.”

“Re-Think Design: Urban Planning with Maritza Mercado Pechin” will take place from 6-8 p.m. on Aug. 16 at the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design, 2501 Monument Ave. For more information, visit branchmuseum.org or call (804) 655-6055.