South Bowie Library Campaign

Update November 27, 2007:

The appeal of the Zoning Hearing Examiners decision on amending condition 5 was held before the County Council sitting as the District Council on Monday, November 19, 2007.

The Developer had requested a change to condition 5, which provides as follow:

"Construction of the library shall proceed concurrently with construction of the first phase of the project. If the applicant constructs the library the construction shall conform to the building program approved by the Prince George's County Memorial Library System".

The change requested is as follows:

"It is the intent of the applicant for the construction of the library to proceed concurrently with the construction of the first phase of the project. To this end, the Applicant shall diligently pursue the negotiation of the sales contract for the library site with Prince George's County. In the event Prince George's County has not acquired the library site from the Applicant within six months of the date of this Ordinance, the Applicant may, in its discretion, delete the public/quasi-public uses and increase the commercial square footage by up to 50,000 square feet. In addition, all conditions of approval in this Ordinance relative to the public/quasipublic and commercial land uses shall be revised accordingly".

The District Council supported the requests of our sitting Councilmember, Ingrid Turner, and passed the Zoning Amendment which included the following wording for condition 5:

"It is the intention of the Applicant for the construction of the library to proceed concurrently with the construction of the first phase of the project. For the purpose of this Ordinance, the first phase of the project shall include the grading, clearing, excavation, infrastructure, and adding utilities for the library and the entire site.

Further, permits for the Credit Union are the only permits that may be pulled prior to permits for the library. It is envisioned that allowing the pulling of permits for the Credit Union will expedite clearing of the site and the ultimate building of the library. However, the library shall be the second permit issued for the site. No other permits may be pulled until construction of the library has begun".

Councilmember Turner is to be commended for her efforts on behalf of our community. In addition, the District 4 Bowie City Councilman, Isaac Trouth was present during the hearing.

Please continue to check our WEBSITE as this development continues

Update September 20, 2007:

As of September 19, 2007 a Contract between the Prince George's County and the Cenhall (Developer) has been signed and being forwarded to the Developer. A copy has been sent to the Zoning Hearing Examiner. Now we have to wait for thje Planning stages to go forward through the County Planning Board and the contract process with the County.

Update, March 6, 2007:

The February 14, 2007 meeting with the Zoning Hearing Examiner for the acceptance of the county's plan for the library at Hall Road was continued until March 14, 2007 at 9:30 A.M. in the Administration Building in Upper Marlboro. The county was not ready with it's proposal

In 1998, and until October of 1999, the Bowie Library was closed. A make shift library was set up in the old Lowe's Building located in the median strip on US 301 and Pennsbury Dr. just south of Pointer Ridge Dr. In the year the library operated at that location it drew more patrons than it did at its original location on Route 450. Our Association saw a need for a new library for the southern end Bowie. In February 1999 we asked the City Council for their support. We gained their full support and were directed to the Board of Library Trustees and the County Government as the libraries are a County function. We began our campaign for the library in September 1999.

Through our association's effort together with the Home Owners Association's (H O A's) of the surrounding communities, the library system and the county were convinced that a new library was needed. Today a 50,000 square foot library is fully funded at $6,675,000. The site is located at Hall Road and MD 214. However, our job is not completed until the library is built. We must be on guard to see that a political move is not made to keep the library from coming into being. We are pushing for the completion of the library by June 2009.