When state Del. Elizabeth Bobo attended an April 28 meeting heralded as the long-awaited unveiling of a 30-year master plan to redevelop downtown Columbia, she expected to get specifics about such factors as future housing densities and traffic patterns.

What she got instead were artists' renderings and "interesting ideas," she said after the meeting. She left hungry for details.

"I don't feel like I'm walking out with a strong grasp of the plan," said Bobo, a Democrat who lives in west Columbia. "I do think there were a lot of positive ideas; how they all fit together is what I don't grasp yet."

Officials of General Growth Properties Inc., downtown's primary landowner, wrote the plan with the aid of a team of consultants and architects.

Although company officials had promised to reveal a master plan to guide Town Center's rebuilding, the slideshow they unveiled April 28 contained far too little detail to be called a master plan, Bobo said.

She liked many of the ideas officials presented, including a watershed management proposal for downtown, and the potential addition of a trolley system or improved public bus system, she added.

"I would love to see us get out of our cars -- would love, love, love it," Bobo said.

But without knowing the details, she wonders how planners will address some of the problematic intersections and where parking facilities would be located.

The other "fundamentally bedrock" question that remains unanswered in the plan is how, where and when General Growth intends to build new housing downtown, Bobo said.

And without those details, she can't say if she supports the plan, she added.

"I don't think there's anything to get behind yet," she said.

E-mail Jennifer Broadwater at jbroadwater@patuxent.com.

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