LETTER: All of Baltimore County Should Be Concerned About Sale of Dundalk Parkland

Dundalk Patch received the following Letter to the Editor about the proposed sale of the North Point Government Center property from Robinwood Road resident Bob Staab:

There is a saying, "Some people don't care what happens if it's not happening to them," and then there's the well-known, "Not in my backyard."  

I am sure to some people, the Vanguard proposal appears to seem like a reasonable proposal.  But then again, "It's not in their backyard."

In the mid-1970s, Baltimore County purchased a 16.9-acre parcel of property along Willow Spring Road for a potential community park in St. Helena.  

As Southeast Area Superintendent of the Baltimore County Department of Recreation & Parks, I began to work with Maurice Hedges, then president of the St. Helena Community Association, to form a St. Helena Park Development Committee to formulate a plan for the park that would accommodate most of the desires of the community residents.  

The park committee was most successful and after many hours of parkland tours and meetings, the committee came up with an excellent plan that was ultimately implemented.  

Prior to park development, I received a telephone call from someone I knew from Dundalk High School.  The individual, although highly successful, was rather notoriously known by many of the St. Helena people because of the trucking interest he had in their community.  He was also associated with a huge automobile undercoating business at the marine terminal.  He asked me what he had to do to buy the property at St. Helena Park, which he would like to use as a staging area for automobiles to be undercoated.  The parkland was in close proximity to the undercoating business.  I told him the parkland did not belong to me, it belonged to the people of Baltimore County and specifically to the St. Helena Community.  It was not for sale!  After he made some comments that he could make it worthwhile to everybody,  I reiterated that it was not for sale and I never heard from him again.  

I sometimes wonder if it had been a different county administration, what may have happened?  I think there is a good chance that the people of St. Helena would have had an automobile staging area all the way up to Willow Spring Road.  

Then again, there could have been a compromise to leave them a ball field and a field house to propitiate the residents of St. Helena.  I don't think so, not in St. Helena!  The residents of St. Helena would have been up in arms, fighting tooth and nail.  But what good would it do them?  That small community would not  have been able to fight the county dministration alone.  They would have needed help from the rest of Dundalk.  But then again, why should the rest of Dundalk cared?  It would not have been in their backyards!

This article is not directed specifically at St. Helena alone.  There just happens to be an individual from St. Helena, who is an outstanding citizen of Dundalk and contributes much to Dundalk's well being who seems to think the Vanguard proposal, and using recreational facilities and parkland for commercial development is "OK."  The sale of Baltimore County parkland to commercial development is a precedent never before used in this county or any other county in the state of Maryland.  

It is a precedent that will have disastrous consequence to the quality of life in Baltimore County.  Every parcel of parkland in Dundalk and the rest of Baltimore County will be vulnerable to the same fate as the North Point Government Center.

Most of our school-recreation centers in the area are over 50 years old.  Nearly all of our parklands have appeal to developers for additional housing, particularly waterfront, or others for commercial development. To all the people of Dundalk, the North Point Government Center is not just a battle for the people of Eastfield-Stanbrook.  It's a challenge for all of Dundalk.  North Point Government Center is not in my backyard, but I see the nonsensical reasoning of inundating Dundalk with more stores when we already have currently over 140 stores vacant.  That's right, more than 140 local vacancies which I have personally photographed and documented.  

Vanguard proposes "12 separate buildings to include restaurants, fast casual dining, Ice cream or frozen yogurt shop, urgent care facility, convenience store/gas station facility, a drive-in fast food restaurant and other not yet defined retail."  Do you see any of these stores that we do not already have in the immediate proximity of the North Point Center?

Even though you may not encounter the excess human and vehicular traffic, trash, runoff from additional impervious surfaces and all the noise and other disturbances, in addition to loss of valuable park facilities in your backyard, you still need to care about this precedent-setting proposal.

We all need to stand up for Eastfield-Stanbrook.  Your community could be next.   

Bob Staab, Robinwood Road

Editor's Note: Bob Staab is a former Southeast Area Superintendent and Director of the Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks, and a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates, where he represented the residents of Greater Dundalk.