Recently we learned that the M-NCPPC has added a CIP budget item of $250,000 in its current budget (FY20) to do a feasibility study for the “North College Park Area Indoor Rec Facility” . Please see the screenshot of the budget item below.

Thanks to the advocacy of many north College Park residents, and in particular Councilman Tom Dernoga for making the request in this year’s budget. Interestingly, we were all told a few weeks before the budget was adopted that NCP community center item will not be adopted. We also didn’t find it in the draft budget.

City staff is going to talk to M-NCPPC staff in a few days to explore more about the study. We’re already several months into the FY budget cycle, so let’s hope that the money is carried over in the next year’s (FY21) budget. Please note that the M-NCPPC allocated $50,000 back in FY2013 to do a feasibility study but they didn’t do any study at that time.

College Park City Council has been asking the M-NCPPC to build a community center in north College Park for a couple of years now, but they have been pretty much ignoring them. M-NCPPC did add the feasibility study to build a community center in north College Park back in 2013 , but they did not do a study. Eventually, this item disappeared in the subsequent budgets. Prior to that, back in 2011, the M-NCPPC added a budget item to “design and construct” a community center in North College Park, unfortunately, it wasn’t funded and the item was taken out as well in the subsequent M-NCPPC budgets. As part of the Formula 2040 plan, M-NCPPC is planning to build big regional centers. They are proposing to build two big community centers in our area – Prince George’s Plaza Community Center and Fairland Sports and Aquatic Center This means smaller local community centers like the one they proposed in north College Park earlier may not happen in future.

Speaking of the FY21 budget, the M-NCPPC is going to hold a public forum next week at its Kenilworth Ave office to gather the public’s ideas/requests about the fiscal year 2021 budget. Here is the flyer where you can find more about the public forum here: https://www.kabircares.org/m-ncppc-budget-forum/. Please join the forum and speak in support of the north College Park Community Center there. We should be thanking the M-NCPPC for putting this in the current FY20 budget and ask them to continue funding it as it’s anticipated the study will not be completed in this fiscal year. The City Council will also discuss its own wish list and send a formal letter at the Oct 3rd worksession.