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Draft design guidelines accompanying an update to Germantown's 1989 master plan will serve as a test run for future master plan revisions, but some property owners say they fear the recommendations could halt the community's growth.

The guidelines, developed by county planners in conjunction with the Germantown Employment Corridor Sector Plan, outline specific design recommendations for streets, open spaces and buildings.

Some of the recommendations, such as creating an interconnected street grid, would have previously been addressed within the sector plan, but the county is moving toward more compact and readable master plans, according to Karen Kumm-Morris, the project's urban designer. The guidelines address the look and feel of the community, she said, and 3-D computerized fly-through videos will help visualize the proposed growth.

"These are guidelines that are taking the sector plan recommendations and showing, in more detail, how to achieve these recommendations," Kumm-Morris said. "It's a finer grain of detail that builds on the master plan. …They're written in a way that we hope will be flexible enough that they won't cause constraints."

Many of the specific points of the Germantown plan, such as recommendations for individual streets, were moved to the design guidelines and a technical appendix, she said. But other aspects of the design guidelines, such as where to locate trees along sidewalks, are usually addressed in more easily updated streetscape projects than master plans, which typically deal with broader issues like zoning and transportation infrastructure and can take years to revise.

At a meeting earlier this month, the Planning Board tentatively discussed revisiting design guidelines more frequently than master plans, which are reviewed every 10-20 years. They also talked about how the guidelines would be interpreted and enforced.

County planners expect to develop design guidelines for all master plan updates, beginning with sector plans for White Flint and Gaithersburg West, Kumm-Morris said. Germantown was selected to be first because it is further along in the master plan process, she said.

The design guidelines will be sent to the County Council to review alongside the sector plan, which focuses on 2,460 acres stretching from Crystal Rock Drive and the CSX railroad tracks to Route 355. The Planning Board's draft of the sector plan was sent last week to the county executive and County Council, who will review the document for 60 days. A County Council public hearing will be in mid-May.

Design guidelines have been developed for smaller areas such as the Germantown Town Center and central business districts, but this is the first time design recommendations have been drafted for an entire planning area, Kumm-Morris said. It is also the first time county planners have addressed architecture.

But some Germantown property owners and members of the business community are concerned that the guidelines would discourage development. At a meeting of the Germantown master plan Community Advisory Committee last week, some members described the guidelines as inflexible and economically unrealistic.

Steve Poteat, director of community outreach for Montgomery College's Germantown campus and a CAC member, said the guidelines fail to reflect economic factors that are likely to keep Germantown in its current land use and architectural configuration for many years to come.

"We're getting wrapped up in a 50- to 100-year plan when we're trying to build a community in the meantime. This [plan] is based on market conditions in Bethesda," Poteat said.

Staff Writer Joe Beck contributed to this report.