How many youth baseball diamonds does Montgomery County have? How many public tennis courts? How many will it need in 2020?
Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission staff are at work on two documents aimed at addressing those questions.
The first, called a Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan, is required by the state of Maryland in order to secure funding from the state’s Program Open Space, which makes grants for parkland acquisition and park development.
The land preservation and parks plan calls on the county to determine its needs for facilities like basketball courts, playgrounds and various types of ballfields through 2020 and to state its land preservation and resource conservation objectives.
Plans for land and recreation submitted by each of Maryland’s counties will be folded into a statewide plan that will be updated every six years.
Program Open Space — distinct from the county’s Legacy Open Space program — has helped fund hundreds of park projects since the 1960s.
”The county [needs] those funds,” said Tanya Schmieler, a Park Planning and Resource Analysis unit staffer at Park and Planning who has worked on the land preservation and recreation plan.
“In some counties, that’s all the money they get. It’s very instrumental in providing funding for both parkland acquisition and development. And we really couldn’t manage without it, particularly as county budgets have more difficulties.”
“If we’re asked any questions we’ll say the state made us do it,” Countywide Park Planning Chief Jeff Zyontz joked in a report before the planning board April 28. “But they’re doing it in a way that makes real sense.”
County planners will hold a public forum to solicit input on recreation needs May 24 and will submit a staff draft of the Parks and Recreation Plan to the state June 30 before holding further public hearings and transmitting the final plan by the end of the year.
Much of the research dedicated to the Parks and Recreation Plan will help fuel a second separate document that planners hope to complete by the end of next year, a Parks Recreation and Open Space Plan. The open space plan is not required by the state and will be used by the county for its own strategic planning purposes.
“We’ve decided … that we want an additional document that is more strategic in nature and touches on policy issues that are relevant to the Montgomery County park system,” said John Hench, head of the Park Planning and Analysis Unit. The plan will focus on questions of strategic importance, like how many county residents live within a mile or half mile of the nearest park.