Wildlife and people search for
parks among Bethesda's
shrinking parkland
No major new parks were required by the 2017 Bethesda Downtown Plan. It turns out that birds are searching as hard for park space as the humans of Bethesda are. Last night at dusk, they took over the trees and and power lines at Veterans Park in the Woodmont Triangle,
11 comments:
Lots of pocket parks and public plazas have been added (I'm sitting in the Flats' public courtyard while typing this). What park space has been lost?
12:03: I'm talking about public parkland operated by the Montgomery Parks department. There is less square footage of it in Bethesda in 2020 than there was in 2010.
That's interesting. What park was removed or shrunk?
Meanwhile, I have discovered that the town of Rockville is strongly committed to creating and maintaining an amazing group of parks. Wooton Mill, Red Gate (newly created from an old golf course, Needwood Mansion, Lake Needwood, Lake Frank, the area around King Farm are examples of thoughtful wildlife preservation and protection with safe walking paths and varied services. Kudos to Rockville. Bethesda? Uh, not much. Bethesda just wants high rise tax generators. It's ugly and cold.
I know they aren’t large but the county is acquiring land to expand Vetran’s Park, and the Capital Crescent Civic Green once the Put-Le Line is completed. The Farm Women’s, Market project proposes to create two large green parks on exiting county parking lots 10 and 25. I’m not sure if these will eventually be operated as county parks or privately owned public spaces. The East Bethesda Greenway proposes to create a linear buffer of green space as well.
Elm Street Park is planned to be modified and improved once the CCT tunnel under Wisconsin is built and daylights in the park. I believe a large play structure is proposed at the portal.
The sector plan also shows new park space on the south side of Montgomery Lane, adjacent to the CCT. Battery Lane Park was recently refurbished, and an expanded privately owned public space is proposed along the Bethesda Trolly Trail as it heads north.
6:48: Those are all very tiny, and none have been built so far, so we still have less square feet of parkland than 10 years ago as of today.
Veterans Park expansion, if it happens, will be mostly hardscape with a busy street running through it (Woodmont Avenue).
Farm Market project's park space was revealed, as I predicted, to be far smaller than what is shown in the sector plan.
East Bethesda greenway is a narrow green strip running alongside large new developments, a token offering in the service of developer profits.
The Bethesda-Woodmont civic green space was actually acquired in preparation for extension of the Purple Line to Westbard and Sumner.
No sizable parks were included in the sector plan for Bethesda, nor for Westbard.
We've been had.
Westbard is very family oriented so I'm still dismayed that no meaningful additional park space is included.
Also, building on the historic African American cemetery is another concern. No historical markers to put the Westbard area into context given the connections to slavery.
So let me ask how you suggest the county should acquire a large parcel of land near downton Bethesda to create such a park? The gas station parcel at Battery Lane and Wisconsin just sold for $10M. The Elm/Wilson property sold for $110M. I think the Capital Crescent Civic Green parcel was $8.5M for a tiny sliver of land.
At this point, the city is so densely developed, that it’s really impractical to assemble land for a sizable new park.
The FWM green space on Parking Lots 10 and 25 is indeed smaller than a magically created vision by a planner, but combined with Elm Street Park, the three parcels will create a nice grouping of green spaces. This of course assumes the county agrees to fund their portion of the underground parking to replace the surface parking lots.
Many folks also forget about Norwood Local Park, a very large and very green park just south of downtown, and easily accessible from the CCT.
12:08: With a budget now approaching $6 billion annually, much of it poorly and unnecessarily spent, it largely comes down to priorities. There are creative ways of getting things done, as well. That would usually involve putting developers over a barrel, and making the type of zoning changes we saw in the plan contingent upon assembly of a central park with enough green and tree canopy to provide an escape among the concrete. I see such parks not only in NYC, but also in states like Ohio, which the Montgomery County cartel would dismiss as "flyover country." I'm consistently amazed by the outstanding park systems found in the metro areas Buckeye State.
My concrete suggestions for Westbard were:
1) totally reorient Westbard Avenue and utilities to allow for a new water feature and park space, such as a manmade lake that could function with waterfalls down to the Willett Branch as part of the stormwater management system.
That ship has sailed, unfortunately.
2) retain the industrial zoning on the south side of River Road to depress land value. Then the County could acquire each parcel back in the industrial park areas and assemble a very large park around the Willett Branch over time - perhaps as a natural wildlife preserve. The River Road-fronting parcels could be left for residential and continued commercial uses.
@5:07 AM A few clarifications to your post. Lakes Frank and Needwood are not within the city of Rockville boundaries, and thus are not operated by the city. These parks are under the auspices of MN-CPPC as part of MoCo. Also, Bethesda, although urban, is not an incorporated city, but part of MoCo also.
I hate to say it, but we need a skateboard park in Bethesda. There are a lot of youngsters around here with boards that need a dedicated area. Better than all the abandoned bank branches that litter Bethesda.
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