The Howard County parks department's capital budget for the next fiscal year has been cut by more than $900,000 but the cuts will not affect a proposed athletic complex and new park in Elkridge, officials said last week.
"We feel our entire capital program is moving forward," said Ken Alban, administrator of the department's capital projects and park planning division.
The proposed athletic complex -- planned for Rockburn Branch Park off Montgomery Road -- is in the design phase.
It has not been funded, but the agency plans to go ahead with the project, Alban said.
The indoor complex would feature soccer, floor hockey and perhaps a recreation room, Alban said.
About $369,000 intended to restore a historic house at Rockburn Branch Park has been cut, and that project will be delayed, Alban said.
Efforts to find land for a new park in Elkridge have been stymied but not abandoned, officials said.
"We can't find a place in Elkridge that we can afford," Alban said.
About $713,000 in the department's budget was proposed to purchase land for the new park, but the money will be used instead to develop a site the department already owns, Alban said.
The department plans to build the park on 51 acres it owns off U.S. 1 west of Troy Hill Corporate Center, an industrial park under development.
Officials are considering acquiring an additional 25 to 50 acres to the south of the site.
Alban said construction could begin on the new Elkridge park -- which could encompass as many as 100 acres -- during fiscal year 1999.
Efforts to find land in Elkridge have been hampered by high prices -- ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 an acre -- because much of the area is zoned for commercial and industrial use, Alban said.
Many of the sites are densely wooded, also a problem because the department did not want to bear the cost of tearing down trees.
Pub Date: 5/19/97
