At its January meeting, the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) elected Prince George’s County Council Member Derrick L. Davis as its Chair for 2020.
Davis has been an active regional leader since joining the COG Board in 2016. He has served as a COG Board Vice Chair since 2017, a member of the Metro Strategy Group, which helped forge consensus on dedicated funding for the transit system, and he led the Housing Strategy Group that developed COG’s regional housing targets in 2019.
Arlington County Board Member Christian Dorsey and District of Columbia Councilmember Robert C. White, Jr., were elected as COG Board Vice Chairs.
Under their leadership, the board will build on recent regional collaboration related to housing and transportation and focus on optimizing land use around high capacity transit stations, which are defined as Metrorail, commuter rail, light rail, streetcar, bus rapid transit, and multimodal stations.
“To create more transit-oriented communities that are accessible to all residents, we need to take our forward-looking planning and placemaking to the next level,” Davis said. “Our region is a national leader in transit use and walkable communities, but we know there’s still plenty of untapped potential to better connect our jobs and housing to transit and grow our economy.”
The board directed COG staff, in coordination with local government planners, to develop interactive tools and new analyses to identify and understand the more than 200 current and future high-capacity transit station areas in the region. These places will play a key role in helping the region meet the recently-established target to locate 75 percent of new housing near high capacity transit stations or regional activity centers.
In 2020, the board will also continue its focus on advancing racial equity regionally and in local government programs and policies. In partnership with the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), COG launched a first-ever racial equity regional learning cohort last fall. More than 100 managers and staff from 11 local jurisdictions are participating in the year-long program.
In February, officials will consider an additional COG Board focus on new efforts to address climate change.
The board also endorsed several regional legislative priorities for transportation, the environment, housing, health and human services, and emergency preparedness.
The Board of Directors is COG’s governing body and is responsible for its overall policies, functions, and funds. Board members are appointed each year by the participating local governments and by caucuses of state legislative delegations from the region.
COG is an independent, nonprofit association that brings area leaders together from 24 local governments to address major regional issues in the District of Columbia, suburban Maryland, and Northern Virginia.
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Transit-Oriented Communities: A 2020 COG Board Focus