There are a lot of good meetings happening this week in DC and Rockville around local planning, from encouraging the arts and retail through DC’s zoning to improving Rockville Pike.

I highly encourage all of you, readers, to attend these meetings in your city or neighborhood. Many of them, especially the DC Zoning Update and the Pike planning, are significant opportunities for you to speak up and have an impact. The Parking and Loading zoning meetings, which I attended, had about 15-20 participants and the consensus of the group made a meaningful difference in what the Office of Planning will be putting into the draft revised codes.

Here’s a list of some upcoming meetings. If you know of something good that I missed, post it in the comments. In particular, I’d really like to know about important meetings happening outside DC; I found the Rockville Pike one somewhat serendipitously, and would love to know about similar meetings in Arlington, College Park, and the rest of the region.

Citywide in DC: Two new working groups are starting this week. The Retail Strategy group (Tuesday, 6:30 pm) will be discussing topics like encouraging more retail downtown, use of public space like sidewalks, fostering diversity of retail establishments (i.e. more grocery stores, not all banks), and more. The Arts & Culture group (Wednesday, 1 pm) will discuss how zoning can help “transform the District into an even more vibrant cultural capital in the future than it is today” including where arts venues can be located and affordable housing for artists.

Rockville: The third public meeting about transforming Rockville Pike into a more walkable, mixed-use place is Tuesday evening at 7. I attended the last one; this meeting will focus specifically on transportation on the Pike.

Meetings about Union Station bike parking, the GW campus, AFRH, and the Old Convention Center after the jump.

Capitol Hill/H Street: ANC 6A, which covers northeast Capitol Hill and the eastern H Street area, is having their Transportation and Public Space Committee meeting Monday at 7, where they will discuss Union Station bike parking and hear a presentation from Zipcar.

Foggy Bottom/West End: Your ANC meeting, ANC 2A, is Wednesday at 7 and will discuss the GWU campus plan, among other topics.

Everyone: The Commission on Fine Arts, which reviews art and architecture on Federal property in DC and various other things, will be discussing the Armed Forces Retirement Home develppment plan and the proposed development at the Old Convention Center site (the huge parking lot around 10th and I). This is much less participatory than the others, but should be interesting.

And for future events, there’s always a calendar on the right sidebar of this site.