Politics & Government

Brickyard Road Soccer Project Moves Forward

Montgomery County signed the sublease with Montgomery Soccer, Inc., Monday.

 

The parcel of land at Brickyard Road that currently holds Nick’s Organic Farm is officially to be developed into soccer fields.

Montgomery County signed a sublease with Montgomery Soccer, Inc., Monday night, according to county spokesman Patrick Lacefield. The county received 550 responses during the sublease public comment period, resulting in one clarification to the lease, according to county officials.

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“The one clarification based on comments made was to state that MSI had to abide by county standards established under mandatory referral,” Lacefield said.

The mandatory referral process will bring the project under the review of the county's park and planning department, which will conduct traffic studies and examine issues such as community impact.

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Community concerns ranged from government process, to impact on neighborhood life and the future of the site’s current organic farm, but the majority of the public’s comments favored the sublease, Lacefield said.

A 750-person petition in opposition to the lease submitted by the Brickyard Coalition was disregarded due to technical errors.

“We were happy to get this feedback but there were no signatures on those papers and no addresses – mail, email, zip or even town – just a list of names,” Lacefield said. “Those could not be included in a ‘tally’ which had counted communications with some sort of address.”

MSI director Doug Schuessler says he is ready to begin the next steps of the development process and looks forward to working with the community and park and planning to figure out logistics.

“We would like community members to work with us and tell us what kind of amenities they would like to see on the site," Schuessler said. “We're going to get that input and we're going to give them things that they say they would like."

The Brickyard Coalition, made up of individuals and civic organizations opposing the county's decision to lease the land for soccer fields, has threatened legal action should the sublease process continue.

 “We are making a final public effort to stop this fatally-flawed process,” said Keith Williams, president of the River Falls Civic Association, in a press release. “However, if the County Executive proceeds with this lease to MSI, we will have no choice except to commence legal action.”

Williams said the coalition doesn’t have specific plans at the point but is prepared to “go as far as we have to.”

Two legal cases are currently pending and the Maryland Board of Education, while a third notice of legal action was filed with . The two current cases allege that the county school board acted outside of its interests in leasing the Brickyard land to Montgomery County for soccer fields, and that Montgomery County has deliberately withheld documents from a public information request.


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