by FERN SHEN

Another old unloved church facing the wrecking ball. Another north Baltimore extended-care facility is clashing with neighbors.

This time, it’s Roland Park Place, the retirement community on 40th Street with a desire to expand its parking by knocking down a church and making other changes. And the neighborhood that’s fighting back, in an effort to assert its identity, is Rolden.

Rolden? The name comes from the two adjacent communities, Roland Park and Hampden.

Hey, they could have chosen Hamrol, which sounds more like some odd luncheon meat, residents point out.

Rolden residents may have a sense of humor about their name, but they are quite serious about opposing Roland Park Place’s parking expansion plan, which they say would threaten the residential quality of their community.

“We’re trying to hold our ground and keep it more residential,” said Tracy Collins. After months of letters and meetings, the two sides have reached a frosty impasse.

Rolden is basically a group of about 100 households and a couple of businesses that occupy the 4000 block of Roland, between 40th Street and University Parkway.

Roland Park Place is proposing to knock down the century-old church building at the southern end of this block (at the corner of Roland and 40th) and put 30 parking spots there. They also want to put 12 parking spaces behind a house they acquired further up the block, 4021 Roland.

Their initial proposal would have meant knocking down the house at 4021 as well, but RPP dropped that idea when residents howled.

“Having a parking lot punched into the middle of the block would be like losing a tooth,” Collins said. “The residents were quite definite about that.”

Even limited to the area behind the house, parking at 4021 would be a nuisance to neighbors, Collins argues. “It’s a 24-hour facility, so people could be in the lot at all hours, talking, having car alarms go off.”

The church, a former Episcopal church built in 1889 and purchased by Roland Park Place in 2001, hasn’t had a congregation in years, but residents prefer even this vacant stone building and its lawn to a patch of asphalt, Collins said.

“There are lots of churches like that on corners in Baltimore,” she said. “How many of the neighbors would want to see them become parking lots?”

Parking spaces at a premium

In talks with Rolden and the Roland Park Civic League (both groups are on record opposing RPP’s plans), the retirement community has laid out its problem pretty clearly. Their parking needs have increased, they say, as a result of a fitness and aquatic center they built in 2002 which required more employees.

Meanwhile, their available parking is going to decrease. They lease 40 parking spaces on the back lot of the nearby Rotunda shopping center and 15 spaces on Elm Street. They’ll lose these 55 spaces whenever construction begins on new buildings planned by the Rotunda’s owners.

RPP’s proposed new parking along Roland Avenue would give them 42 badly-needed spaces, they say.

Like Keswick Multi-Care Center, their next-door neighbor on 40th Street which clashed with the Roland Park community over their proposal to build at the site of the Baltimore Country Club, RPP argues that the population is aging and communities need places for their elderly.

Community’s character debated

Rolden-ites worry that the parking lots will set a bad precedent, pushing the area more toward retail and commercial uses.

In recent years, she said, younger couples, singles and families have moved in, giving the area a new energy and diversity. Collins says her neighbors include “attorneys, a couple of professors, somebody with a construction business and a nurse.”

“We’ve been here 5 years. I grew up in Baltimore, left and came back,” said Collins. “We’ve liked this area! It’s so convenient. I’ve liked being able to put the baby in a stroller and walk to the grocery store. And not having to drive so much.” The Elmhurst Nursery School, on this block, is another draw, she said.

Roland Park Place, meanwhile, argues that Rolden is romanticizing when it says the church “anchors the beauty and character of the neighborhood.”

“Any driver or pedestrian approaching the intersection, one corner of which houses the church, must also see the laundry, the sushi bar, and the beauty parlor which occupy the remaining three corners,” RPP residents wrote, in a November letter to Rolden.

Of the church, they said:

“It is obvious from its present decayed appearance that little attention was given to the upkeep of the church prior to RPP’s purchase of the property. Yet ROLDEN now claims that the church is ‘ours,’ further espousing its history and appearance.”

Ouch.

They even argue that their parking lots would improve the neighborhood, creating ““in lieu of an abandoned and deteriorating church, an attractively landscaped parking area.”

The Rolden Community Association last week sent out an email urging neighboring communities to support them and write to City Council members to oppose RPP’s plan.  Collins is still hopeful that RPP will consider some of the alternatives Rolden has suggested to help them with their parking problems, including leasing spaces from the Hopkins at the newly-purchased Zurish building nearby.

Collins says Rolden was not “arm-twisted” by the Roland Park Civic League, as some have suggested, but really wanted to improve quality of life for the odd little piece of Baltimore they have grown to love.

“Others may not like our neighborhood or think much of it,” she said, “but we really like it a lot.”