Jaeger Property Status

Jaeger Property Status
November 18, 2002
J. Glenn Eugster, NPS-NCR

Worked with Ahmad for 18 months on the public purchase of the Jaeger Property.

Working with Ahmad on a revised agreement of sale. We were discussing posible dates to sign an agreement and announce the sale of Jaeger Property to NPS.
--Reflected a sale price that was almost ½ million dolarrs than the appriased value of the property.
--It had support of, and funding from, the Greenbelt City Council; Westchester Park Civic Association; State of MD Department of Natural Resources; the US Congress; the National Park Trust; and the National Park Service.

I was stunned when I got Ahmad’s voice-mail message. We understood that we had a deal. Ahmad had told me that he wasn’t negotiating with the Friends and didn’t want to sell the property to the Friends Community School. I thought he was negotiating in good faith and it is clear that he was playing both sides against each other to raise the price.

Voice-mail call from Ahmad 11-8 at 1:00 pm—note that they were changing direction and considering a sale to the Friends School.

Voice-mail call from Ahmad 11-8 at 5:14 pm—note that they had made an aggreement to sell to the Friends Community School

Discussion with Ahmad on 11-11. He indicated that they he and his partners were planning to sell the property to the Friends Community School because they:
were willing to pay $75-100,000 more than we offered.
were willing to purchase the land immediately.
Were able to offer security.
Mr. Ahmad also said that he had “stepped beyond his bounds” in negotiating with NPS and that he had lost creditiability with his group because of his negotiations with NPS.

The Friends School had approached NPS in March 2002, through the National Park Foundation, and asked us to consider working with them to purchase the land so that it could be developed as a school. We discussed that proposal with the City of Greenbelt and our Park Superintendent John Hale and we told them that the City of Greenbelt, and the NPS, wanted the land protected as parkland.

The acquistion of the Jaeger Property has been a priority for the City and the NPS for more than 20 years. We’ve been dedicated to protecting this property because it was part of the orginial vision of Greenbelt National Park and parkland continues to be lost to development in this region. As you may know, the DC region loses 28 acres of open space each day to development.

Over the last eighteen months we worked relentlessly to secure:
--$1. 1 million dollars from the US Congress for NPS land acquisition funds;
--$100,000 from the City of Greenbelt;
--$10,000 from local citizens;
--A commitment of $200,000 from the National Park Trust;
--$100,000 from the State of Maryland; and
--An asurance that the property owners would receive a federal income tax credit for selling the property to NPS.

We discussed this at a number of City Council Meetings, and with leaders of the community. We had all of our elected officials, at all levels of government, solidly behind the acquisition of this land for park purposes.

I’m troubled by the fact that the owners, within a four-hour time period, changed the deal without taking to NPS, or the City. I’m even more concerned that the Friends Community School and the owners ignored the cooperation and commitment that was demonstrated by the community, the State, Congress and the federal government and took this unilaterial action. The future of the Jaeger Property has been of considerable interest to the public for more than twenty years. It’s unfortunate for Greenbelt and Greenbelt National Park that this decision was made this way.