Cardin reaches agreement with District officials on Oakhill

Potential plans for excess land include county park

An Anne Arundel county park is one potential use for part of the land, officials said.

Cardin used a hold on legislation that would allow Fenty to take over the city’s school system as leverage. District officials had begun preparing the site for the new center despite a bill Cardin and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) of Baltimore introduced in March that would relocate Oak Hill to the District.

He lifted the hold three days before the agreement was announced.

The deal does not alter the District’s plans to rebuild Oak Hill west of where it currently sits. Lashón Seastrunk, a spokeswoman for the District’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, which runs Oak Hill, said that asbestos abatement in buildings to be torn down to make way for the new center was nearing completion.

Seastrunk said construction remained on track to begin at the end of the month.

Oak Hill, located on federal land in Anne Arundel County between Route 198 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, is home to a fluctuating population of around 80 District youths 14 to 21 and includes Oak Hill Academy, an alternative middle and high school in the District public school system.

Area residents, worried about breakouts, have questioned why a detention center for District youth should be in Maryland and have pushed for its closure or relocation for decades.

Cardin spokeswoman Susan Sullam said the senator will continue to push his and Mikulski’s bill and has not given up on moving Oak Hill to the District.

‘‘He will not miss an opportunity to try and get that facility out of there,” Sullam said.

Phone messages left Monday with representatives for Fenty and Norton were not returned by press time.

The new Oak Hill facility is to be built on about 40 acres south of the Little Patuxent River.

Sullam said Cardin endorses using the remaining acres for parkland, a security buffer for the National Security Agency and wetlands management.

Anne Arundel Executive John R. Leopold (R) has said he would plan to use any land the county acquires for a park and for another purpose that’s agreeable to the community.

Tim Reyburn, Western County Federation of Civic Associations President, said he has shifted his attention to getting a 300-acre regional park with picnic pavilions and playing fields.

‘‘It sounds like D.C.’s dug their heels in and the feds are not going to able to boot them out,” he said of the prospect for relocating Oak Hill to the District.

Reyburn, also the Russett Community Association’s Treasurer, said that given the amount of players involved and development pressures, he’s pessimistic any park would be as large as the area needs.

E-mail Steve Earley at searley@gazette.net.