Before it’s sold to create Baltimore’s newest recreational area, Hillside Park, the land owned by the Baltimore Country Club (BCC) will undergo a remediation process to remove and store soil that contains remnants of pesticides and herbicides that were applied when the area was used as a golf course and grass tennis courts.
The remediation work is one of the last steps that must be completed before the 20-acre parcel off Falls Road can be transferred to the Roland Park Community Foundation, the non-profit organization that has a contract to buy the land for use as a park open to the public.
Mary Page Michel, chair of the board of the community foundation, told members of the Roland Park Civic League this week that a contractor is getting ready to begin the remediation work and that it will take several months to complete.
She said the work will entail removing potentially contaminated soil from the 20-acre parcel that the foundation is purchasing, burying it in a pit on land that the country club is retaining, and then capping the pit.
Michel said the work is necessary to create Hillside Park, which she described as “the first new park of its size in Baltimore City in a century.”
“Right now the reason that we’re waiting on settlement is that it was an old golf course, and it was treated with chemicals to control the tees and the greens for the golfers, and we are waiting for the country club to remediate the property,” she explained at the Sept. 4 meeting. “We were told that it would start August 1 and it is now September. We see that there are stakes in the ground, so we know it is coming.”
Michel said the work will be paid for by the country club and carried out under the supervision of the Maryland Department of the Environment.
“They’ll be testing all along and then grass has to grow and then we can buy it,” she said after the meeting. “When we take it over, I’m told, it will be cleaner than your backyard,” she told the Civic League members.
Sale agreement reached in 2021
Foundation members have worked for years to raise funds to acquire the parcel and convert it to a park that would be privately-owned but open to the public. Their mantra has been: “Put a park in Roland Park.” In December of 2021, after soliciting bids, the country club disclosed that it selected the foundation to buy the land and that the sale price is $9 million.
The sale does not include the BCC’s clubhouse at 4712 Club Lane and about 12 acres that it is retaining at the top of the hill, but it does include most of the sloping property between the clubhouse and Falls Road to the west. In 2022, the foundation reported that it had raised funds for the purchase from 596 donors representing 34 neighborhoods in Baltimore City, 26 communities in Maryland and 19 states.
Michel said after the Civic League meeting this week that evidence of pesticides and herbicides was discovered as the foundation was preparing to take ownership of the property.
“We found out in our due diligence” period, she said. “We were advised that we better make sure that the soil has nothing contaminated” in it.
According to a fact sheet prepared by the country club and posted on the civic league’s website, certain pesticides and herbicides that were used when the land was a golf course “are no longer approved by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and, as such, the areas of the new park that were tested and found to contain certain concentrations of the pesticide/herbicide components will be remediated.”
The bulk of the excavation work is expected to take until mid-November to complete, with some work possibly occurring until mid-December, according to the fact sheet. The remediation work will generally take place between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and heavy excavation equipment will never be used before 7 a.m., planners say.
According to the fact sheet, ‘the completed project will return the remediated areas within the new park to vegetated land and open space that generations of Roland Park residents and visitors will enjoy for decades to come.”
One benefit of the remediation work, the fact sheet states, will be “the planting of over 150 new trees on the property BCC will continue to own once the land sale is finalized. The abundance of new trees abutting the park will create a beautiful and diverse canopy.”
In her remarks this week, Michel cautioned members of the Civic League that the area is still privately-owned and off-limits to the public while the remediation work is underway. She added that the foundation has raised sufficient funds to complete the purchase but not all the pledges are paid off and the foundation is still raising money so it can limit the amount it may have to borrow.
Mary Page Michel of @Roland_Park, MD, will receive a certificate of appreciation for her important work on Hillside Park, a brand new 20-acre park inspired by Olmsted. Help us celebrate her and our other winners at dinner on September 15: https://t.co/NMhLeqyZGn pic.twitter.com/aj5AF4U56f — Olmsted Network (@OlmstedNetwork) August 24, 2024
Olmsted Network recognition
For her efforts to create Hillside Park, Michel will receive a certificate of appreciation from the Olmsted Network during an awards banquet at Vassar College in upstate New York on Sept. 15. The certificate reads: “In recognition of her commitment to the vision and values of [noted landscape architect] Frederick Law Olmsted in the creation of Hillside Park in Baltimore, MD.”
Michel said many people have contributed to make Hillside Park a reality.
“This is all community work, with tons and tons of people involved,” she said when asked about the honor. “Nonetheless, it’s very nice.”
