Mantis#1637. Thank you kindly, Melanie for a patch that:

Make each region load it's settings from the database on startup. 
No user functionality yet.

OpenSim/Framework/RegionInfo.cs

@@ -197,6 +197,7 @@ namespace OpenSim.Framework
         public string DataStore = String.Empty;
         public bool isSandbox = false;
         private EstateSettings m_estateSettings;
+        private RegionSettings m_regionSettings;
 
 //        public bool m_allow_alternate_ports;
 
@@ -280,6 +281,21 @@ namespace OpenSim.Framework
             }
         }
 
+        public RegionSettings RegionSettings
+        {
+            get
+            {
+                if(m_regionSettings == null)
+                {
+                    m_regionSettings = new RegionSettings();
+                }
+
+                return m_regionSettings;
+            }
+
+            set { m_regionSettings = value; }
+        }
+
         public void SetEndPoint(string ipaddr, int port)
         {
             IPAddress tmpIP = IPAddress.Parse(ipaddr);
@@ -560,4 +576,4 @@ namespace OpenSim.Framework
             configMember.forceSetConfigurationOption("lastmap_refresh", lastMapRefresh);
         }
     }
-}
+}