Whenever those funds are used to acquire or develop a park, that land can then never be transformed to non-park use without providing land of equivalent recreational value to the community.

Then, the county used money from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to develop Rock Creek Hills Park. Whenever those funds are used to acquire or develop a park, that land can then never be transformed to non-park use without providing land of equivalent recreational value to the community.

Anonymous wrote:Everyone likes to give MCPS a hard time for "targeting parks," and for selling property, but no one seems to blame the Parks dept. for possibly encumbering RCH. Why is that? If MCPS gave RCH to the Parks Dept with a reclaim, then why are they getting so much argument over turning it back into a school site? Seems like either that site, or another Parks site in its place, should be used.

Anonymous wrote:I keep going back and forth btw Lynbrook, Norwood park (why did they exclude that?) and NCC Park as the best options. NCC park is NOT heavily used. It always seems empty the few times I've been there. They could put a pedestrian/biker bridge over Jones Bridge to allow kids to safely walk to school.

If NCC Park was heavily used, I'd understand it...and by the way, the issue with Lynbrook is what happens when BCC is overcrowded? This problem is not going away....Lynbrook could be a satellite campus for BCC.

Anonymous wrote:Wow. That's too bad. As a Chevy Chase resident, I think Norwood would be a great site. It is centrally located, allowing for creative drawing of the boundaries between the new middle school and Westland so that the new school could be more racially and socioeconomically balanaced, and could even take overflow students from Pyle (which the Super has indicated is possible). It either has or has the potential to have multiple transportation points, and it is right on the Crescent Trail, so it would really encourage walking and biking.

Lynbrook would also be a GREAT site, in the sense that one could create a lot of synergy between the middle and high school. Advanced students could more easily take classes at BCC. In terms of field use, Lynbrook and BCC could use NCC fields, rather than constructing the new school at NCC.

Funny how when East Bethesda wanted to get out of the RHPS partner pairing, they complained about how much time their kids spent on the bus and how they had lost their neighborhood elementary, but now that that same spot could be a middle school, they don't want it.

Anonymous wrote:

We will not sit back and have more infrastructure foisted upon us while our neighbors only a few blocks away threaten lawsuits to preserve "open space" (aka property values.)

And you should not sit back and accept this! A novel idea: How about MCPS use property it already owns and already has infrastructure on and quit taking community parks from people.

I think MCPS is going to have to start singing a different song when it comes to their greedy "cheap" land grabs.

They are coming to the table with their hands out, and offering nothing of their own. In fact, it appears to me they are protecting their own interests while picking their sister agencies' pocket.