WMATA Property at Albion Road - Important Update

When the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC) submitted a bid for the WMATA Property at Albion Road back on 2/22/19.  I posted about it here:

http://riverdaleparkstation.blogspot.com/2019/02/parks-and-recreation-bid-submitted-for.html

Even though the MNCPPC submitted a very competitive bid for the property another bid was selected on April 10th 2019.  As far as we can tell there was no public input to the selection of this bid.

The bidder that is currently selected is now in a 90 day "Due Diligence" period for the property.

Common sense says that if the selected bidder beat out a strong MNCPPC bid and the asking price is 2.1 million dollars for only 6 acres of a thin strip of hard to build land that upzoning is the only thing that would make sense to this bidder.  The current R-55 zoning that would only allow for single family homes to be built.

This land is a publicly-owned green-space and a valuable environmental area that has been identified by the county as a top area to preserve. Additional density is coming to the area and preserving this property is critical to quality of life - a reason why the communities, cities, county council, and MNCPPC worked together to place a competitive bid on the property.

The leadership of College Park, Riverdale Park have no plans for rezoning this property and this land sits within both jurisdictions.

It is important during this period that the same teamwork that pulled together all of the surrounding communities homeowners and city government officials to make that large financial commitment continues now.

Although there are already countless email chains between all the players involved we thought it would be a good idea to also have a Facebook page to coordinate efforts from people interested in the community.

That page is here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/728160610912866/

I will update this blog with what the final outcome for this land is.  But if you are interested in assisting, are one of the town officials that have been helping us or you are personally affected living in Calvert Hills, Riverdale Park Station or University Park you should join the Facebook group for better communication/coordination of preservation efforts.