What do equestrians, tennis players, dog owners, motor sports enthusiasts and cultural and ecological conservationists have in common?
All have something to say about the Land Preservation, Park, and Recreation Plan, a less-than-glamorous but critical planning document that will determine how the county and state respond to the groups’ wish lists over the next 20 years.
Representatives of all of the constituencies, 18 in all, testified on the plan at an Oct. 27 public hearing at Park and Planning headquarters in Silver Spring.
The plan is required by the state in order to be eligible for millions of dollars of grant funding for land acquisition and recreation development. Every jurisdiction submits a plan in the same format, giving the state a clear picture of needs and trends in each area.
“It’s the core of our being in a lot of respects,” said Jeff Zyontz, countywide park planning chief at Park and Planning.
“We’re doing it because we have to. That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea, but we’re doing it because we have to,” Planning Board Chair Derick Berlage said at the hearing.
Zyontz said that the plan requirements, while broad, are far from a tedious exercise. They focus the department on trends in recreation and park use, asking it to determine not only what it needs more of, but what it could get by with less of.
The department knows, for example, that it needs fewer diamonds and more rectangles. Baseball and softball are declining in popularity while soccer and other sports like lacrosse and field hockey — played on rectangular fields — are on the rise.
Another recent conclusion: skateboarding is here to stay.
“We’re very conscious about not trying to waste public dollars. So we don’t want to jump into … something that’s a flash in the pan,” Zyontz said. “You see us now spending millions of dollars on skate parks. It’s established and there’s a constituency out there and if you don’t provide it they’ll do it on sidewalks and streets.”
The state requirements now have a much broader focus that includes historic preservation, agricultural preservation and maintaining space for “passive recreation,” activities like bird watching that rely on protecting land rather than developing it.
Those types of recreation still aren’t receiving the attention they deserve, said Ginny Barnes, speaking on behalf of West Montgomery County Citizens Association.”
“The environment, meaning nature in our parklands, seems to be a difficulty we work around in planning facilities, rather than the … reason why most county residents visit our parks as our surveys show,” she said.
Barnes pointed out that to “recreate” literally means to refresh or rejuvenate — something that is done in pristine settings rather than paved recreation centers — and that bird watching is the fastest growing recreational activity in the United States.
But groups with competing interests, particularly all-terrain vehicle and motorized dirt bike riders, made a strong showing at the hearing.
Hearing the testimony, Berlage said that it is Park and Planning’s job to serve the recreation needs of all county residents and directed staff to begin examining other jurisdictions’ motocross parks.
“The question is always where, how much, and under what criteria?” said Commissioner John Robinson in response to the motorsports enthusiasts. “There might be 10,000 of you riding on your motorcycles but I would match that against one Ginny Barnes any day.”
Berlage later added a clarification. Open space preservation is the single biggest budget item for Park and Planning, he said, and two-thirds of all county parkland is undeveloped.
“Make no mistake about it, there’s nothing in here that changes the fact that conservation is a very, very high priority for this agency,” he said.
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.
That plan will be more concise and policy-oriented, planners said, setting specific priorities for how to implement the jumble of ideas in the state plan.