December 13, 2000|By Alec MacGillis | Alec MacGillis,SUN STAFF
Hoping to sustain a project bogged down in opposition almost since it began two years ago, a local group is releasing new details about its proposal to turn the Patapsco Valley State Park and adjacent towns into a more tourist-friendly "heritage area."
The group behind the project, recently renamed the Friends of the Patapsco Valley and Heritage Greenway, has been relatively quiet since last spring's decision by Howard County officials to cut off funding for the plan. The group is seeking to certify the state park and nearby historical sites as a unified "heritage area" and thereby win state funding it says it will use to make the valley a more popular tourist destination.
Tomorrow, the group will give an update on its plans at an invitation-only gathering of residents, county officials and reporters. The group will hold more meetings that will be open to the public once it has developed a more complete plan, said Kit Valentine, the group's president.
The rough outlines of the group's draft plans for a Patapsco Heritage Greenway can be discerned, though, in submissions to the state during the summer, obtained by opponents in a public information request.
According to the submissions, the group's proposed improvements for the valley include an Ellicott City parking garage, estimated to cost at least $1.5 million, and an "interpretive site" at the Thomas Viaduct inside the park, estimated to cost $350,000. The draft plans also envision, among other things, new hike-bike paths from Baltimore-Washington International Airport to the state park and from Ellicott City to Ilchester, both pegged at a cost of at least $1 million.
Under the submitted plans, the greenway's boundaries would encompass much of the state park, the Ellicott City Historic District, the Wilkins-Rogers flour mill, the George Thomas House, downtown Elkridge, the Catonsville part of Frederick Road and the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park. The proposal foresees a visitors center in Ellicott City with $120,000 worth of exhibits and a four-person staff to administer the greenway at an annual cost of $160,000.
"It's going to sound like a multi-zillion-dollar thing, but some of these things are already under way under different entities. We're just trying to be a catalyst," said Paul Bridge, the group's vice president.
Greenway foes say the plan could spoil the very natural treasures in the state park that it hopes to highlight and question the motives of the plan's backers, who include several developers. The plan's critics also have questioned the group's fiscal soundness, noting that the greenway backers have received about $70,000 in public funds in the past two years to produce a final "management plan" that is now months behind schedule.
"We now have a picture of what these people want to do in the Patapsco Valley," said Lee Walker Oxenham, an Ellicott City resident opposed to the plan. "What we have is a very sensitive ecological corridor, with a state park we're lucky to have to protect it, and now we find the state park itself is being targeted."
This week's update of the proposal's status comes at a pivotal moment for the greenway backers. The group's agreement with the state expired in the summer, shortly after the group collected its third $20,000 payment from the state.
The group, which earlier went by the name Patapsco Heritage Greenway Committee, now must apply for a new agreement with the state under its new name, which was adopted to help it acquire non-profit status. To renew the agreement, which would provide another $20,000, the group needs letters of support from Howard and Baltimore counties, both of which have had their doubts about the plan. Baltimore County declined to finance the group, and Howard County last spring withheld $15,000 it had committed to the group, noting the strong local opposition to the plan.
"If they decide they want to proceed in a different way, they need to go through the proper process to make that happen," said Elizabeth Hughes, a state administrator of the heritage areas program. "We're waiting on them to make the next move."
County Councilman Christopher Merdon, an Ellicott City Republican, said he had yet to consider the group's request for renewed approval of its mission.
"There are a lot of people who care about [the greenway], and I see them wanting to move forward with it, but it's a very difficult proposition to get acceptance from other people," he said. "I don't want to dash anyone's hopes, but it will be an uphill process to proceed."
Bridge said he remains confident that the group will win more support through its coming campaign to educate the valley's residents about the emerging plans. "We want the public to understand what it is we want to do. We want to make it abundantly clear," he said. "Without public cooperation, we have no greenway."
