The Open Space Campaign

Open Space Campaign: What and Why?

The Open Space Campaign for Greater Roland Park is a special project of the Roland Park Community Foundation to raise money for open-space projects. It is detailed in the Fall 2012 issue of the Community Foundation’s Roland Park News.

The Greater Roland Park Master Plan of 2010-2011 had the bold goal of establishing a vision for the future of our community in terms of transportation, housing, commercial areas, infrastructure, livability, streetscapes, open space and recreation.

The master plan encompassed great scope and great detail — down to the streetlights and sewers. No other city neighborhood has ever tackled this type of planning effort with an all-volunteer army. The result was a list of hundreds of would-be neighborhood improvements, most of which can be covered by federal, state and city funds.

The open-space projects, however, are unlikely to be completely paid for with government funds. These projects are farsighted, beautiful and will constitute a permanent legacy to generations of Roland Parkers to come.

Roland Park: The Movie explaining the community’s vision for Open Space on Vimeo.

The top three open space priorities identified by the master plan are:

•     The purchase of Baltimore Country Club (BCC) excess land (see video above),

•     The restoration of the Roland Water Tower (one of only two Beaux Arts water towers in Maryland), and

•     Improvements to the Stony Run valley, see Stony Run Strategic Plan_Dec 2017

Three other projects that are less time-sensitive will be addressed in the second phase of the campaign, these being:

•     Improvements to Centennial Park (the median between the east- and westbound carriageways of University Boulevard)

•     Replanting the neighborhood’s tree canopy

•     Improvements to the Roland Park footpath system.

If you have questions, please contact Mary Page Michel or Ellen Webb at (410) 464-2533

or at CommunityFoundation@rolandpark.org/.