We appreciate the passion with which community members have come forth to provide their opinions on whether to move forward with the current redesign of Spring Park.
We wanted to provide the public with clarity about what the redesign does and does not entail, and provide some context as to the history of public involvement here. We also invite the public to attend a public hearing on this subject on Tuesday, January 25, at 7pm to provide their opinion so we can make a final decision on whether to move forward with this project. We will follow up with the WebEx link for the meeting, but you should also be able to find the link once it is posted on the City calendar at https://www.mountrainiermd.org/residents/city-calendar.
-> The Design
The redesign itself is limited to adding a permeable path intersecting the northern end of the park to create a “cut-through” from Shepherd to 33rd Streets. The middle of the path would be intersected by a circle labyrinth (14 feet in diameter). The labyrinth is surrounded by a 2-foot wide permeable ring (creating an 18-foot-wide circle), on top of which would sit a curved wooden bench. This path, the labyrinth, and benches are designed to lie only in the northern portion of the park. The spring is not impacted by this design. You can see the design in its entirety at the end of this document. (Attached)
The path is designed to be entirely permeable. While the labyrinth itself will have impermeable features (impermeable pavers with small spacing between the pavers), it will be enclosed with a 2-foot permeable pavement circle where stormwater will be directed.
The remainder of the park will merely see more native plantings in spots, which are much better than the turf grass it will replace from a stormwater perspective.
It should be noted that the permeable path will make this park ADA accessible.
-> History of Community Involvement
This project has also had extensive community input through four public meetings dedicated to this project alone and as an agenda item on over 13 other public City Council meetings. All meetings were announced in advance to the public. We encourage residents to sign up to receive notifications of public meetings through the City’s website at https://www.mountrainiermd.org/.../communic.../stay-informed.
Due to some unfortunate circumstances – the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergencies it created, as well as a dependency on others’ schedules – there were admittedly gaps in time between some of this input. Here is the background of that involvement.
In the late fall/early winter of 2018, this project began as a partnership between the City and a local non-profit, Little Friends for Peace, to apply for a grant to establish a Peace Park. The City was then awarded a $50,000 grant in 2019. This project has never been to honor any one person or group of persons. The purpose has always been to create a space honoring peace with space to gather and interact with neighbors. There were public City Council meetings where this grant was discussed.
On January 6, 2020, the City held a community meeting at Red Dirt Studies to see what residents would want with a redesign of the park. The meeting was attended by 19 people, including several from the University of Maryland’s (UMD) Plant Science and Landscape Architecture program. Prior to this meeting, flyers were placed at each house within one block of the park in every direction. At this meeting, Dr. Jack Sullivan, Professor of Plant Science & Landscape Architecture at UMD, held a discussion with residents as to what they would like to see done with the park.
Then, on March 8, 2020, a second community meeting was held in the Community Room at MRPD. This meeting was attended by about a dozen residents. At that meeting, Dr. Sullivan and his graduate students presented three concept drawings based on the discussion on January 6, and residents gravitated towards elements of two designs – a meandering path through the park and a circle area with benches. You can watch this 1.5-hour meeting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BS5I8S7_Sg&t=3s.
During these meetings, voices of residents immediately bordering the park expressed displeasure at the scope of the project, its hardscaping elements, the potential for unwanted visitors to the park, and a general loss of a space they enjoy as is. Other residents, however, favored turning this park into something that would invite residents in to enjoy what is a public space. They felt the current space, while occasionally used by neighbors nearest the park, went unused by the public at large.
As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world shortly thereafter. The City’s attention shifted focus to address this emergency.
In the late summer and early fall of 2020, the Mayor and Council reverted their attention to the project. At this time, the City felt compelled to address the concerns expressed by those who live near the park. As a result, it asked Dr. Sullivan to scale back the design. Unfortunately, that process took some time.
On March 31, 2021, a public hearing was held (via Web Ex due to the COVID-19 pandemic) to discuss the new concept, which eventually turned into the drawings at the end of this letter. During this meeting, there was push back from residents who were now dismayed at the pared down version since it abandoned some of the design’s more ambitious features. That said, it seemed to address the concerns of neighbors bordering the park, striking the right compromise between residents. From there, the plan was to have Dr. Sullivan take the concept and turn it into a more specified drawing (which turned into the drawings at the end of this document) to get more feedback from residents, and give the City a more scaled drawing to send out for a Request for Proposals (RFP) from contractors.
Unfortunately, another gap ensued. We had to extend our contract with UMD and were reliant on Dr. Sullivan to find students who could complete the design during UMD’s 2021 fall semester. Dr. Sullivan provided the more specified design in December 2021, and that design was discussed at the December 21, 2021 public City Council meeting. Residents attended this meeting, including those immediately bordering the park. At this time, the City faced pressure to get an RFP out as soon as possible because the grantors needed city expenditures to begin in March 2022 or we would risk losing the grant funding. The City held one more public hearing on January 4, 2022. During that conversation, residents could voice their opinion on the matter. From our perspective, the design seemed to be a good compromise between those who wanted more and those who wanted less.
The Mayor and Council then voted, in the following legislative session on January 4, to move forward with the RFP. There was consensus to move forward. The project, however, still had one big question mark. Bordering the property is the City’s only “Exceptional Tree,” a towering eastern hemlock, and the City needed a certified arborist to determine if the design would impact the health of the tree. The last thing the City wants to do is harm a tree that is truly exceptional.
The arborist toured the site on January 20th and indicated the project could move forward if three steps were taken to protect the tree: move where the labyrinth intersects the path a bit further to the northeast, install a tree fence around the tree’s presumed root system where the contractor couldn’t go, and aerate the soil at the fence line to expose any roots that may go beyond that line towards where landscaping will take place. If those roots are larger than 3 inches in diameter, we would alter the design to avoid those roots or reconsider the project. Ifnot, which seems likely given the distance of the project to the tree’s structural root system, the arborist recommended using a process of “root pruning” to make clean cuts of those roots. Although this would not leave the City’s only Exceptional Tree untouched, he did state that root pruning can be healthy for a tree in promoting new root growth. We are still awaiting his written report and will share it with the Tree Commission for their opinion before any decision is made to move this forward.
We also want you to know that the City has stated that this was intended to be only the first phase of improvements for the park. Its intention is to continue conversations and explore the possibility of revitalizing the spring itself and placing historic signage in the park. Our $50,000 grant is unfortunately non-fungible, and so this project cannot be swapped for a different purpose or at a different location.
We hope this helps provide some context to residents. We know there were gaps in this project’s development and we take responsibility for that. As a result, we hope to see you at our public hearing so that we can hear your opinion on whether to move forward. Regardless of whether the redesign occurs, the Mayor and Council have already given direction to the City Manager to install a drainage pipe from the well to the local stormwater infrastructure to ensure it does not pool anymore. That work will not impact the Exceptional Tree.
Kind Regards,
Your Mayor, Council, and Little Friends for Peace