Landscape Transformation
9 years $120,000 in county open space waiver fees. $150,000 in State bond funds. $15,000 in private grants and donations. Countless staff, board and volunteer hours.
These numbers are impressive, but they don’t really tell the story of Powhatan Park. The story lies in the actions of people. People who live in the Powhatan Farms Community. People who believed in a vision of something that might be …
Transformative!
In 2007, the Powhatan Farms Improvement Association wrote to NeighborSpace seeking “a park with … flowers, and an area that would allow our community to have cookouts and possibly hold our monthly community meetings during the good weather months.” By 2008, NeighborSpace had purchased the L-shaped, 1.5-acre piece of land that served as the de facto “back porch” of Powhatan Farms, a community of duplex homes in Lochearn that was developed in the late 1950s.
Then came the hard part - how to create the multi-purpose space that the community wanted? NeighborSpace had not previously been in the business of both protecting and improving land. But it was clear that, short of a substantial retrofit, this parcel would be of no real use to the community.
To the rescue came students from Morgan State’s Landscape Architecture Program. They met with community members. With the help of their instructor & NeighborSpace board member Jack Leonard, they then created a design that reconciled the site’s challenges, i.e., uneven topography & lots of stormwater runoff, with the community’s desires.
Jack Murphy, then president of the NeighborSpace Board, led the fundraising effort, convincing County Executive Kamenetz to pursue State bond funding in 2012. The County Executive delivered, securing $150,000. The County Delegation also deserves credit for this success, especially Delegate Adrienne Jones.
Marsha McLaughlin and John Alexander, co-chairs of the NeighborSpace Stewardship Committee, led numerous cleanups of the property. Marsha, the recently retired Director of Planning for Howard County, used her many years of planning experience to get the project bid in the summer of 2016. That fall, Natural Concerns and Daft McCune Walker were hired to implement the Morgan students’ design. And this fall, thanks to so many of YOU who donated your time and your money, the project is nearly done.