Speak Out: Does Downtown Silver Spring Need More Parks?

Downtown Silver Spring's Central Business District is populous, dense and still growing, by most accounts. With all the new development, should lawmakers be more focused on creating parks?

According to Evan Glass, head of the Silver Spring Citizen's Advisory Board, many concerned residents want more public, open green space. Glass sent a letter to Motngomery County Executive Isiah Leggett, Council President Nancy Navarro and Councilwoman Valerie Ervin, who represents downtown Silver Spring, asking for a different approach to parks in the neighborhood. 

"While many public and semi-public spaces exist in the area, there remains a concern about these spaces, especially with the anticipated amount of new construction to occur over the next decade," Glass wrote on March 15. 

He said the current mandate that residential developers either create open space on their property or put money into a pool that can be used by the government is creating a population of "unused mini-parks."

"A better way of securing the type of public spaces that the community could better utilize would be to waive the requirement for open space in favor of incentivizing contributions to the amenity fund," Glass wrote, "whereby money could be collected to create larger and more thoughtfully located green spaces that would truly be public."

What do you think? Does the center of downtown Silver Spring need larger, public parks?