Board Votes Unanimously To Approve Purchase of Estate for New Winfield Park

The Carroll County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the purchase of an estate on Salem Bottom Road for the location of a new Winfield park with athletic fields Tuesday.

The new park will be located on the 9.16 acre Barnes Estate directly across the road from Winfield Elementary School. While the park will be located on county-owned land, the project will be developed and funded by the Winfield Recreation Council.

In their decision Tuesday, the Board of Commissioners authorized staff to purchase the property for the price of $200,000 with $190,000 of the final price coming from State Program Open Space funds and $10,000 transferred from park impact fees.

The previous board of commissioners originally made a 17-acre parcel on Streaker Road available to the recreation council for this specific use, but the land was not ideal for the project, according to Jeff Degitz of Carroll County Recreation and Parks.

“That particular property is very linear, long and narrow it was not purchased for a park site, it was actually purchased for a road relocation that ended up not happening, so it was not an ideal site by any means,” said Degitz at Tuesday’s open meeting.

“There was also some community opposition. There was concern about traffic and with it being very linear, concerns about balls veering off of the property into people’s backyards.”

After realizing the property wasn’t ideal, Degitz suggested the Barnes estate on Salem Bottom Road as a possible solution.

“The recreation council was very excited about this property,” he said. “Even though it’s a less amount of acreage (than the Streaker Road lot) there’s more usable acreage and I think there will be a better end result because of that.”