Decision on open space in county deferred

Residents come out in force to support properties in their neighborhoods

But after hours of testimony, the Planning Board deferred its decision. It will revisit the recommendations after giving Legacy Open Space staff a chance to modify recommendations based on the testimony from residents, but has not set a date for the vote. The Planning Board is accepting written public comments through Dec. 3.

The Legacy Open Space program is designed to side with preservation. The program’s staff bases recommendations on historic, cultural or natural value — like whether a site is crucial for water quality in the county, whether it connects county trails or, in urban areas, whether it is a key green space.

Legacy Open Space staff consults with internal and volunteer advisors while reviewing nominations. The Planning Board, whose Chairman Royce Hanson is part of the Legacy Open Space advisory team, then considers the staff’s decision.

Thursday’s report recommended the following properties:

*Beverly property in the Broad Run Watershed in Poolesville; *‘‘Wild Acres” property and Grosvenor Mansion near Fleming Local Park in Bethesda;

*Capitol View Park’s forested Milton property;

*Hickey-Offut properties near Rock Creek National Park in Bethesda;

*National Park Seminary Carriage Trails, also called Ireland Drive, in Silver Spring;

*Chevy Chase’s National 4H Council Headquarters on Connecticut Avenue; and

*Montgomery College of Art and Design in Wheaton.

Two sites not recommended for Legacy Open Space designations were the prehistoric Selden Island site south of Poolesville in the Potomac River, and the Edson Lane Forest — which could be developed into affordable housing — adjacent Tilden Middle School in Bethesda.

The county has $14.47 million in Legacy Open Space expenditures planned for fiscal 2008 and 2009 combined, according to county budget documents. The program has a $100 million total budget divided over 10 years.

The program is one of several resources available for county parkland acquisition.

Commissioner Jean B. Cryor spoke in favor of one property — a site that wasn’t included in the staff’s recommendations.

‘‘I do want to see Edson Lane Forest on this list. The question we’re being asked is to choose between two goods,” Cryor said. ‘‘We will have other places to put affordable housing, but we will never get that stand of trees again.”

Cryor said that, if forced to bump another property off the list to make room for Edson Lane, she would defer the Poolesville site for a year.

Commissioner Allison Bryant was troubled by the Legacy Open Space program as a whole.

‘‘I’ve always been disturbed by the idea that a property can be nominated for something by anybody, and it doesn’t belong to them,” Bryant said.

Bryant earlier disclosed his role in opening up the Montgomery College of Art and Design in Wheaton for residential development. The prospect of townhouses being built on the site sparked neighbors’ interest in getting the site into the county’s Legacy Open Space holdings.

Several testimonies favored county acquisition of the site as public parkland in an area where parks are sorely needed, residents said.

Commissioner Gene Lynch who lives in Silver Spring empathized with residents’ fears of crossing Georgia Avenue to get to parks — a reason cited for acquisition of Montgomery College of Art and Design for a park on the western side of Georgia Avenue.

‘‘My mother and I tried to cross it,” Lynch said of Georgia Avenue. ‘‘I had to leave her behind.”

Testimony was passionate for and against nearly every other Legacy Open Space site, and many turned out to ask for the Edson Lane site’s inclusion.

‘‘There are plenty of shopping centers worthy of being cut down,” Potomac resident Ginny Barnes said in her testimony for Edson Lane Forest.

The ‘‘Wild Acres” property that surrounds Grosvenor Mansion in Bethesda emerged during testimony Thursday evening as one of the more contentious nominees, rivaling the college’s property.

The property holds the historic mansion once owned by Gilbert Grosvenor, the first editor of National Geographic Magazine. Two modern office buildings are built on the property as well, housing the Society of American Foresters.

‘‘We are the professional forestry society of the United States,” the society’s Executive Vice President and CEO Michael Goergen argued during the hearing. ‘‘We are conservationists.... We purchased this property when few people wanted to deal with it.”

But others saw an opportunity for securing the property against rumored bids for development.

‘‘We’re very concerned about what they’re going to build there,” Cheryl Leahy of the neighboring Wildwood Manor Citizens Association said in her testimony.

Leahy said neighbors ‘‘have concerns about potential uses of the area” within the Legacy Open Space nominated site. She wanted one or both lots in the property added to county holdings. The staff recommended only one part of the property.

Speakers from the National Park Service supported Legacy Open Space designations giving more county control over stormwater or ecological impacts in the Rock Creek National Park watershed.

About 10 residents from the Rock Creek Forest neighborhood in the audience support Legacy Open Space designation of the Hickey-Offut properties.

The property owners want to subdivide it into 11 single-family residential lots. They countered the neighbors, arguing that county acquisition would turn the land into a private buffer for the property’s neighbors.