Media Center

Brookside Nature Center Hosts FREE, Popular Maple Sugar Festival February 20 & 21

WHEATON, MD—Brookside Nature Center will host the exceptionally popular Maple Sugar Festival on Saturday, February 20 and Sunday, February 21 from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm both days at the nature center, 1400 Glenallan Avenue in Wheaton.

The annual Maple Sugar Festival at Brookside Nature Center began in the 1970s. Since then, the festival has become a long-standing and popular tradition. Last year, more than 1,400 visitors watched and tasted as the sap from Maple trees underwent the full process of being boiled into homemade maple syrup.

“In the nature center on the festival days, we will briefly explain the science of what’s occurring with the Maple trees and why February offers such a small window of time to harvest the sap,” said Betsy Taylor, Brookside Nature Center park naturalist coordinating the festival.

Participants begin their Maple Sugar Festival experience with a short introduction and movie in the nature center auditorium. Festival stations allow visitors to see and taste the sap dripping from trees, to test the sap as it’s boiling down, and to compare the homemade maple syrup against commercial brands on silver-dollar-sized pancakes served in an authentic log cabin. At each station, participants can learn more about the maple sugaring process. Participants can expect to spend about an hour for the complete festival experience.  

The Maple Sugar Festival is FREE and open to all ages. No reservations are required. The event will be held rain or shine. For more information, call Brookside Nature Center at 301-962-1480 or visit www.BrooksideNature.org.

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Contact:
Kelli Holsendolph
Media Relations Manager
Montgomery County Department of Parks
301-650-2866

Planners Launch Interactive Online Map to Inform Public about Location, Importance of Forest Conservation Easements

SILVER SPRING – To promote a “green” Montgomery County, environmental planners have developed a web-based educational program to emphasize forest stewardship and provide information about the importance, location and restrictions of forest conservation easements.

By mapping the location of thousands of easements across the county and creating a web-based tool that displays easement locations and details, planners hope that easement owners will learn how to care for and monitor the health of forested areas. View the tool.

Perpetual legal agreements that run with the land, conservation easements keep forests intact, prohibiting activities -- from mowing to grading to building a tennis court -- that would damage their function. Most easements allow passive pursuits like hiking and bird watching.

To find easements using the online map, enter addresses into the search bar or mouse click and zoom in. Detailed information, including plat numbers, recordation dates and links to legal documents, accompany each easement. Browsers can report alleged conservation easement violations, such as construction activities, using the tool.

The web site also contains information about how to care for an easement area, a narrated slide show suitable for presentations and a five-minute video of a forest conservation inspector doing fieldwork.

Forest conservation easements ensure the integrity of forests, which contribute to water quality, habitat, clean air and community well-being. The Planning Board enforces an ambitious forest conservation program by regulating forest disturbance when development is proposed, setting goals within master plans, and a planting program. The county has protected about 9,700 acres – about 3.5 percent of the county – through forest conservation easements.

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Love Abounds Parks-Style: Montgomery County Department of Parks Offers Valentine's-Themed Programs for All Ages

SILVER SPRING, MD—This February’s edition of The Parks Show set to begin airing on County Cable Montgomery (CCM), Sunday, January 24 and throughout the month of February is all about the beating heart of parks.

“We decided to present The Parks Show in a different way this month,” said Department of Parks Media Relations Manager and The Parks Show Host Kelli Holsendolph, “… with a parks love story.”

This love-themed episode of The Parks Show features puppets Jacob and Emma who meet as children at the Wheaton Train and Carousel, date as teens at Cabin John Ice Rink, marry as adults at Brookside Gardens and spend time with their first puppet baby, Water Lily, at Rockwood Manor’s Princess Gala and other parks programs.

The show also offers viewers ideas about some unique and different ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day—parks-style. Some of the Valentine’s-themed programs the Department of Parks is offering this year and mentioned on The Parks Show include:

Be My Valentine
Saturday, February 6
10:00 am – 11:30 am
Rockwood Manor
11001 MacArthur Boulevard
Potomac, MD 20854
Children can create and decorate Valentine’s treats and cards to share with friends and family. Fee: $20; ages 3-8. Register at www.ParkPASS.org for Course No. 95399.

Valentine’s Week Chocolate Celebration
Wednesday, February 10
12:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Black Hill Visitor Center
20926 Lake Ridge Drive
Boyds, Maryland 20841
The rich history of chocolate is filled with romance, obsession and magic. Investigate the world’s love affair with this amazing New-World discovery, explore the cocoa tree’s natural history and enjoy samples of organic and fair-trade chocolates from around the world. Fee: $10; adults, 18 and up. Register at www.ParkPASS.org for Course No. 91199.

Wild Love
Friday, February 12
7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Locust Grove Nature Center
7777 Democracy Boulevard
Bethesda, Maryland 20817
Come out for a hot (or not) Valentine’s date. Enjoy a unique presentation on nature’s unusual ways of expressing affection and finding lifelong love—or something like it. Light refreshments will be served. Fee: $5; adults only, 18 and up. Register at www.ParkPASS.org for Course No. 96667.

Sweetheart Skate
Friday, February 12
8:00 pm – 10:00 pm (Wheaton)
8:15 pm – 10:15 pm (Cabin John)
Wheaton Ice Arena, 11717 Orebaugh Avenue, Wheaton, MD 20902
Cabin John Ice Rink, 10610 Westlake Drive, Rockville, MD 20852
Bring your sweetheart and the two of you can skate for the price of one. A total price of $6.25 includes admission and skate rental for two people.

Love Bugs?
Friday, February 12
10:30 am – 11:30 am
Meadowside Nature Center
5100 Meadowside Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20855
Cockroaches and spiders may scare some, but the bugs at Meadowside Nature Center are irresistible fun! Kids learn about interesting bugs, then, make some buggy Valentines. Fee: $5; ages 3-6. Register at www.ParkPASS.org for Course No. 96149.

Explore a Park: Hike with Your Honey
Sunday, February 14
9:00 am – 11:00 am
Brookside Nature Center
1400 Glenallan Avenue
Wheaton, MD 20902
It's Valentine's Day! Grab your sweetheart and go for a hike on Seneca Greenway Trail. FREE, ages 18 and up. Registration required at www.ParkPASS.org for Course No. 92864.  Participants will be contacted with meeting site information.

“We have something for Valentine’s of all ages,” added Holsendolph. “And unlike a five-course dinner at a fancy restaurant and a dozen roses, these outings in the parks won’t break the bank!”

To watch The Parks Show, tune into CCM (Comcast Channel 6 and Verizon and RCN Channel 30); the show airs daily.  Or, watch online at www.MontgomeryParks.org or www.MontgomeryCountyMD.gov

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Contact:
Kelli Holsendolph
Media Relations Manager
Montgomery County Department of Parks
301-650-2866

National Park Seminary Housing Developer Becomes Recipient of Historic Preservation Tax Credit

SILVER SPRING – Two historic buildings at the National Park Seminary, a mixed housing project in Silver Spring built on what used to be a historic girls’ finishing school, were among four projects in Maryland to earn a rehabilitation tax credit last week.

On Friday, Gov. Martin O’Malley announced the tax credits, which will qualify the National Park Seminary builders for nearly $2 million in recognition of the developer’s efforts to preserve a unique part of Montgomery County history.

The governor’s announcement highlights a housing development that showcases the economic and cultural value of historic preservation. The redevelopment of the National Park Seminary adds to the local economy, preserves a quirky slice of Montgomery County history, and demonstrates sustainable building practices by recycling interesting historic buildings.

It also represents a success story for county planners, who reviewed the redevelopment project when the developers, the Alexander Company and EYA, submitted an application to the Planning Board. To ensure that the developer preserved the historic character of the campus, and to work through the details of building on a complex site, staff guided the National Park Seminary project through the Historic Preservation Commission and the Planning Board review process.

Other groups, such as Save our Seminary, which promoted historic preservation of the seminary site, and the Maryland Historic Trust, which holds a historic protection easement on the property, also played key roles. Today, the National Park Seminary is a community of historic and new townhouses, single-family homes, condos and apartments.

Other projects that received part of this year’s $5 million state rehabilitation tax credit program are in the city of Baltimore and Bel Air, Harford County. Over 12 years, completed rehabilitation projects have generated more than $1.74 billion for the Maryland economy, according to a study by The Abell Foundation. Tax credits to rehabilitate buildings result in a return of $8.53 for every public dollar invested, the study says.

At a press conference, Gov. O’Malley indicated he would introduce legislation seeking to expand and broaden the historic preservation tax credit program to include “green” projects that are close to transit, re-use existing infrastructure and conserve energy. The governor’s efforts mirror the Montgomery County 2009-2011 Growth Policy, which seeks to provide incentives for developers for similar “green” efforts. Unless reauthorized during the state legislative session, Maryland’s rehabilitation tax credit program will end in June. Montgomery County ranks second in the state for receiving rehabilitation tax credits for residential projects, behind Baltimore.

The National Park Seminary project, located near the Forest Glen Metro station north of downtown Silver Spring, was placed as a district on the county’s historic preservation list -- known as the Master Plan for Historic Preservation -- in 1979. The site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

In 1890, the Forest Glen Inn was built as a resort hotel.  When the inn failed, it was converted into the main building of the school, which opened in 1894. Most of the other school buildings were built between 1894 and 1915. In 1942, the property was requisitioned by the U.S. Army for the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Later, many of the little-used buildings fell into disrepair. In 2004, the Alexander Company in partnership with EYA initiated the rehabilitation of the campus.

The tax credits will offset the costs of rehabilitating two more buildings on the site – the gymnasium and power plant that were part of the girls’ school. The developer plans to turn them into 27 residential units.

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Montgomery County Planning Board to Reconsider Resubdivision Criteria for Non-Residential Uses

SILVER SPRING – The Planning Board is charged with considering requests from property owners to resubdivide – to alter platted lots by dividing or assembling them. Under current policy, whenever a property proposed for resubdivision lies within a residential zone, the Board evaluates each request related to the site’s compatibility in a residential area, along with related criteria.

In 1998, the Board decided to require that applicants in residential zones wishing to assemble platted lots, or recorded properties, meet the same standards as the division of lots -- regardless of the actual or planned use. That has made it difficult for property owners to locate or expand some allowed, non-residential uses permitted in residential zones, such as places of worship (permitted by right), medical offices, and day care centers (permitted by special exception).

In such cases, applicants usually must seek a waiver from the resubdivision criteria, such as street frontage, size and shape, from the Subdivision Regulations, and such waivers may be difficult to justify.  If the applicant’s request for a non-residential use is on a property that has not been platted, less restrictive criteria apply.

Planners, reviewing several applications for resubdivision – an existing nursing home in Kensington-Wheaton, a new day care center in Clarksburg, and a new church in Glenmont – are asking the Board to reconsider its 1998 decision and determine whether it correctly interpreted the Subdivision Regulations regarding the assembly of residential lots for allowed, non-residential uses.

Staff recommends that the Board only apply the resubdivision criteria to residential uses. At 1 p.m. February 18, the Planning Board will consider whether to change its policy and apply the resubdivision criteria only to lots being created for residential uses. 

To assist the Board in reaching a decision, Chairman Royce Hanson is asking anyone interested to submit written comments by January 29, which will give the Board time to consider the proposed change and its impacts before the February 18 hearing.

Download the staff report and submit comments.

WHO:
Montgomery County Planning Board

WHAT:
Public hearing on resubdivision policy

WHEN:
Public hearing: 1 p.m. Thursday, February 18
Written comments due January 29 (Send to [email protected], fax to 301-495-1320 or mail to Chairman, Montgomery County Planning Board, 8787 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910)

WHERE:
Park and Planning Headquarters
8787 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring

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