MontgomeryParks.org

PEACHWOOD CIVIC ASSOCIATION
Silver Spring, Maryland

February 2010

TO: All Residents of the Peachwood Civic Association Area
FROM: Richard Meyers, President

As most long time residents of the Peachwood, Colesville Park, and Windridge Acres subdivisions know, and as some of our newer residents may know, these three subdivisions have joined together to be represented by the Peachwood Civic Association. PCA is not a homeowners association but purely a civic association formed and existing to monitor and protect the civic interests of the three subdivisions. 

Over the years we have engaged in such activities as securing a left turn southbound out of Piping Rock Drive when New Hampshire Avenue was widened, fought efforts to rezone the open farm area north of Peachwood Drive for higher density housing, getting our streets repaved, working to limit the impact of the ICC on our community, and securing the funding to build Peachwood Local Park, one of the nicest local parks in the county. We also participated with Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) in its design.

Speaking of the Park, the MD State Highway Administration (SHA) has proposed building a dry drainage pond on park land immediately to the south of the Park parking lot as part of their environmental mitigation efforts associated with construction of the ICC. As a part of the ICC environmental stewardship and compensatory mitigation program, the State Highway Administration (SHA) is completing a number of stream restorations, wetland creation, and stormwater management projects throughout Montgomery County and Prince George's Counties. Many of these projects focus on the Upper Paint Branch Special Protection Area due to the watershed's high water quality and unique self-sustaining brown trout population. 

As part of the county's watershed protection program, Peachwood Park was identified as a site for the creation of a stormwater management facility. This site is located about a mile upstream from the primary spawning grounds of the Upper Paint Branch's brown trout population. The facility would be a significant benefit to the Good Hope Tributary, considering that this site is one of the last remaining headwaters of the Good Hope that is not currently being treated for stormwater runoff. 

M-NCPPC has requested our participation in planning for this project. For openers, the M-NCPPC Planning Coordinator is mailing to you along with this memo, a survey to all subdivision homes within the PCA area about our Park usage. It is very important that as many of you as possible fill out the survey and promptly return it to the M-NCPPC. The survey is also available to fill at the Montgomery Parks website. Simply go to www.ParkPlanning.org and look for the link for Peachwood Neighborhood Park the project and survey in the blue "Quicklinks".

In addition, I am looking for interested persons to volunteer to be on an ad hoc committee with me so that we can work with the M-NCPPC to ensure that our interest in the Park and its facilities are respected by the SHA. Therefore, in addition to advising the M-NCPPC about your willingness to volunteer to work on this issue, please also advise me directly and provide me with your contact information. You can e-mail me at Peachwood1270@verizon.net, call me at 301-384-6170, or deliver a note to me at 14809 Peachwood Drive.

Let me at this time on behalf of PCA extend a formal welcome all those families who have moved here recently (at least since my last community memo several years ago). I also want to thank everyone in advance for their participation in the M-NCPPC Peachwood Park Survey and I hope to hear from some of you who are willing to volunteer time to work the drainage pond issue. If we don't stand up to the SHA along with M-NCPPC, they will surely do what they please, whether or not it is in our best interest.