The city welcomed public input to plan for the future of Buddy Attick Park in a community meeting at the Municipal Building last Thursday evening, ahead of the launch this week of an online public survey. The output of the process will be an updated master plan for the park.
“This will be a roadmap to help staff manage the park well into the future,” said Greenbelt Recreation Director Greg Varda in a phone conversation on Friday.
Community members filled the council chamber, calling for greater accessibility, protection of the park’s biodiversity and enhanced infrastructure for
sustainability while praising the park as a bulwark of the Greenbelt community.
“We’re here to listen,” said Tom McGilloway, planning director of the Baltimore-based landscape architecture and urban planning firm Mahan Rykiel Associates, whom the city has contracted to undertake the process.
McGilloway and Brian Trusty of PROS Consulting, the subcontractor on the project, asked attendees to provide input verbally and through live polls on their smartphones.
Attendees noted that the coarse gravel and rocks covering the lake trail exclude people using wheelchairs, the elderly and some with disabilities but that benches make the park more accessible to those with limited mobility.
Varda said Friday that the city will search for a material to make paths safe and accessible, while resisting erosion and maintaining stormwater permeability.
“We certainly don’t want to put stone that’s large enough that you can twist an ankle,” said Varda. “Nor do we want stones that move under your feet and could really cause somebody to get hurt. That’s something we really need to figure out.”
Attendees called for improved signage to mark the park’s multiple entrances, highlight side trails to access the park, such as the one linking Crescent Road and the parking lot from Boxwood Village and label entrances closed to cars.
One attendee noted that the park lacks signage in Spanish, and that all notices for the community meeting appeared to be in English.
Another attendee suggested signage to clarify rules of conduct on trails, such as right of way between pedestrians and cyclists.
After the meeting, Trusty echoed a need for “a consistent, more complete regimen for signage,” including wayfinding signs and “rules of the road.”
Community members voiced concern about the lake’s water quality, but Varda said the master plan will not address water quality directly. “This master plan is not specifically geared toward water quality of the lake,” he said, and told residents they’d need a different study for that. “Water quality will need to be studied separately and at this time there is no plan to do so,” Varda told the News Review.
Several community members noted repeated flooding on the south side of the lake, near Lakecrest Drive, after heavy rains, adding that the stagnant water attracts mosquitoes.
Larry Hilliard of Greenbelt, said that placing a recycling bin next to each trash can would encourage people to recycle.
Hilliard said of the lone trash cans, “You see them fill up with bottles and cans. People want to do the right thing.”
The online survey, which will be available in English and Spanish by the end of this week, will be open through the month of September. McGilloway and Trusty said they will report back on survey results, present draft concepts and invite more feedback during a second community meeting later this year.
In a poll asking what’s missing in the park, an “accessible surface,” “more benches” and a “food forest” were among the popular responses. “Nothing” was also popular.
McGilloway voiced a commitment to preserving the park’s best qualities.
“A master plan isn’t always a framework for adding facilities,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a guide to keep you from doing the wrong thing.”