Changing the landscape in older communities is among the bigger challenges local leaders can undertake, but the results can make it very worthwhile.

In Kensington, a town known for its antiques and history, making plans for the future means coming to grips with the past and the present.

Taking the long view, Kensington has an enviable assortment of homes and styles, including Victorian architecture lovingly maintained. To many, the town is known for its good neighborhoods, schools, parks and antique shopping. There are holiday parades, theater productions, road races, artists’ showings and a popular farmers’ market. All good things, and many of the right ingredients for the best communities.

So what’s the problem? Is it the heavy commuter traffic on Connecticut Avenue that pours past every day, making it perilous for pedestrians? The shops hidden out of sight that struggle to attract shoppers? The lack of housing choices for aging residents or younger buyers? The glut of gas stations and repair shops?

When my fellow officials and I realized that plans for Kensington had gone 33 years without an update, we knew we had to make up for lost time. We pressed for an official review of the town’s planning and zoning refining our sector plan and got it. We enlisted an outside group of planners, architects, lawyers and thinkers from the Urban Land Institute to give us an honest appraisal of the physical features of Kensington, and they produced a thorough and thoughtful report. We hired a strategic communications firm to assess outside opinion.

But nothing happens in Kensington without much citizen involvement, debate and deliberation. And that’s a good thing, too. We’ve logged more than 60 public meetings and recorded more than 200 public comment sessions, meeting openly in official hearings, in coffee chats, in homeowners’ living rooms and in individual businesses. Since we started on this course in 2007, there’s always been excellent participation to discuss the right mix of uses, building heights and density all important parts to update our sector plan.

Weighing support from every corner of our town, two successive mayors and councils voted to move forward with a refined sector plan, a blueprint really, for the next 20 to 30 years. It proposes some new apartments and condos, more retail and dining, limiting building heights in our core to 45 and 75 feet and imposing design guidelines to protect residential areas and prevent a "canyon" effect.

What we want to accomplish is to refresh Kensington, adding some sparkle to its history, enlivening its core to stay current and not lose more visitors to attractive areas nearby.

This new sector plan strives to set a course for Kensington’s future, revitalizing where necessary, refreshing when possible. With the good guidance and support of the Montgomery County Planning Board, it will improve our traffic patterns, protect the historic district, add housing options, create public amenities, attract new business and services, improve pedestrian safety, and enhance public landscapes.

In Kensington and elsewhere, this type of concentrated effort is what’s necessary if our communities are to remain viable and desirable places to live. It’s a process that’s long and sometimes tedious, but failing to plan properly for the future does a major disservice to the past.

Peter Fosselman, Kensington

The writer is mayor of Kensington.