Major Grant Award Sets Up for Environmental Justice in Woodlawn

By Patrick Filbert and Barbara Hopkins

A Major Victory

NeighborSpace is incredibly excited to announce that it has been awarded $61,353 in grant funding to improve Powhatan Park in Lochearn. Because maintaining and improving this park has been such an ongoing concern, this award is a major shot in the arm.

Stormwater Management Concerns

For those unaware, Powhatan Park is located in a largely working-class African-American community in Lochearn (also considered Woodlawn or Gwynn Oak). The story began in 2009 when NeighborSpace purchased the site. The beginning of the long restoration process for this beleaguered corner lot finally cumulated in Spring 2018. NeighborSpace held a big Ribbon Cutting Ceremony where all the relevant parties came together. At the event, NeighborSpace, community leaders, politicians, environmentalists, activists, and the Baltimore Sun celebrated a great accomplishment.

The joy was short-lived, however, as Summer 2018 brought tremendous rainfall to the area. The rain brought to light the serious stormwater concerns with the park, which flooded extensively. As the park flooded, the gravel paths washed away exposing the black tarp underneath in a largely unattractive manner.

It turns out a major reason for the flooding is that the County never installed a crucial drainage pipe connecting the roads adjacent to the park. Thankfully, after an appeal to the Olszewski Administration, the County stepped in. In Summer 2020, the pipe was finally installed going a long way towards preventing a relapse.

The Bigger Picture

The pipe story is representative of the kind of partnership with the County that will be necessary to make a dent in our open space challenges. 65% of residences inside the URDL lack access to adequate open space within a five-minute walk of home. The problem is particularly bad in places like Lochearn on the west side of the County.

These open space challenges are exacerbated by the fact that 50% of the population is generally too old, too young, too disabled or too poor to drive to one of the regional parks that are being upgraded in the County's current capital budget.  More neighborhood parks like Powhatan Park are needed, but the idea that that they will be funded via open space waiver fees is not realistic. Last year, just $18,000 came to NeighborSpace from these fees, with just $82,000 going to the Department of Recreation and Parks. The new fee schedule that was passed by the Council a month ago is not likely to result in much of an increase.  In spite of the strenuous efforts by NeighborSpace to make this clear to the County, the schedule does not account for both the cost of purchasing AND improving land as the law requires. To his credit, the County Executive has asked Planning Director Lafferty to convene a work group to look at the law and recommend improvements to it that will result in both more open space and more equity. Improvements to the law and better enforcement of it cannot happen soon enough, as it seems NeighborSpace is monthly fighting Council legislation wherein those who should be helping to solve our public open space challenges are instead introducing special bills that make our problems worse.

It is against this backdrop of challenges that NeighborSpace has been aggressive in its pursuit of grants. The award of $58,853 is the organization's largest competitive grant award ever. Beyond that, NeighborSpace also acquired an additional $2,500 for the project from Baltimore Gas & Electric. This funding will go a long way toward building a sustainable trail system on-site with the necessary stormwater management features to help protect it. Stay tuned for details on the construction timeline.