Robert:

On Saturday, November 17, some of us saw a number of people at the Resurrection Baptist Church Site planting trees.  Attached are a few pictures of the results of their activity.

We were able to identify two types of trees that were planted:  White Dogwood and Red Maple.  It appears that the height of the trees varies from approximately 4 feet to 6 feet (you will notice that two of the pictures show the difference in size between one of the few trees that was left on the property and one of the newly planted trees).  The diameter of the trees is approximately 1/2 inch. 

Although we applaud the church members for planting trees, the size of the trees is insufficient to fix the problem created by the clearing of trees from the Limit of Disturbance (LOD) zone.  In addition, the planting of such small trees is not in conformance with the Sandy Spring-Ashton Master Plan (pages 42-45).

It is our understanding that you were requiring Resurrection Baptist Church to submit a new landscaping plan, created in conjunction with Park and Planning staff and concerned members of the community.  We also believe that such a plan has not been approved by the Park and Planning staff.   It was just Friday, November 16^th, that you indicated the letter to Resurrection Church about submitting a new landscape plan would be in the mail either Friday or Monday.

There is one other piece of information that you should know about.   Someone came up to the person taking the pictures and asked what he was doing.  He responded that he was taking pictures to send to the Planning Board.  The Resurrection Baptist Church person said that Robert Kronenberg had told him that everything that the church had done is perfectly fine, that the church was only planting the trees to be nice to the community, and he could not understand why we are not satisfied.  At some point he indicated that someone else from the church had talked to Michelle Layton, which is true, but irrelevant, as she did not suggest that such small trees would be acceptable.  It surprised us to hear that a representative of Resurrection Baptist Church still believes that you have approved everything concerning the landscape of the church site.

We would like to have a meeting with you and Bill Barron and anyone else you and Bill think should be present to discuss what Park and Planning’s plan will be to rectify what is now a more complicated problem.  Please contact Michelle Layton (deleted) or via email at (deleted) to set up a meeting. 

Signed,

Steering Committee

Sandy Spring-Ashton Rural Preservation Consortium (SSARPC)