Beginning in 2011, as chair of the Anne Arundel Sierra Club, I helped lead community efforts to stop the massive development of the forest at Crystal Spring (now Providence Point).

Engaging former State Sen. Gerald Winegrad, we assembled a large group of respected area leaders to try and bring common sense to the issue of overdevelopment of this property and the Annapolis Neck Peninsula.

The developers/owners all refused to even meet with us and try to resolve concerns. Eventually, I retired in 2015 and moved to Massachusetts but have remained involved.

In 2018 I was invited to participate in two meetings chaired by Planning and Zoning officials, where the CEO of National Lutheran and his development team presented their plans and heard community concerns.

We thought the meetings last July and September were to open communications and try to resolve differences. Our concerns boiled down to four items: decreasing forest clearing from the planned 30 acres and honoring the developer’s earlier pledges, and city law, to replant all cleared forest, acre-for-acre; managing polluted stormwater so that there would be no increases in rate, volume or pollutant loads into Crab Creek from a 20-year storm event; connecting Skipper Lane to the development site to ease traffic on Forest Drive and allow residents to access the CVS Safeway and other services there; and a conservation easement to prevent any further development and clearing of forest on the site.

I was baffled when the developers filed their plans Jan. 22 and not one of these concerns had been resolved. Worse yet, the new plans contrived to show they wouldn’t have to replant any forest — a marked change from previous filings.

All of us feel we have been stabbed in the back and wasted our time trying to work in good faith with the developers. This bad faith bodes poorly for the city and its residents going forward.

We have no choice but to oppose this plan.

DAVID PROSTEN, FALMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS

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