More News

With some residents set against development on an Oxon Hill historic site, a Prince George's County commission on Tuesday night approved a proposal agreed on by the developer and residents.

The Prince George's County Historic Preservation Commission approved archaeological studies to examine the historical value of the Salubria property, a first step in clearing the site for development.

But the commission rejected part of the proposal by the site's owner, developer The Peterson Cos., to remove the remaining structures on the property and delete Salubria from the county's historic sites plan. The site already is zoned for mixed-use development.

The proposal approved Tuesday allowed for the second phase of two archaeological surveys, of three potential phases of identification, evaluation and treatment of the site and its artifacts.

The commission stripped the non-archaeological study plans from the proposal because such actions would be premature and outside the purview of the historic area work-permit process, said Howard Berger, the acting supervisor of the Historical Preservation Commission's staff.

Commissioner Henry Turner Jr. said the way the three proposals were bundled together raised eyebrows about the developer's intentions.

"Do you really want to do the archaeological surveys, and then if there's nothing there, go to steps two or three?" Turner asked. "Or do you just want us to do all three of them at once?"

William Shipp, a lawyer representing the Peterson Cos., a Fairfax, Va.-based development company that owns and operates National Harbor, said Salubria's site and environmental setting that surrounds it bisect the developer's property, making it extremely difficult to develop around.

"We're not hung up on the idea [of removing the site features and environmental setting immediately], and we shouldn't have suggested that we wanted to ‘obliterate' Salubria," he said.

Local historians consider Salubria to be an important place in African American history. In 1834, a slave girl poisoned the children of her master, Dr. John Bayne, and was later hanged. Later, Bayne became a Union officer, a state senator who supported emancipation and school superintendent.

Representatives of the Peterson Cos. have previously said the site, because of its mixed-use zoning, could be built into anything from retail or office space to a hotel or houses. Shipp said that if they were to remove the site's features and artifacts and build over it, the developer would find some way to mitigate that and keep the spirit of Salubria alive.

June Dillard, president of the African American Heritage Preservation Group, said that so far, the developer's plan has been too vague on how it plans to mitigate the removal of the site's foundation and features if it were to develop there.

A meeting is scheduled for Friday for Peterson Cos. to meet with Prince George's County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D), Dillard and Richard Krueger, , chairman of the Broad Creek Historic District Advisory Committee, to find a way for the land to be developed while preserving the historical significance of Salubria.

Addison Castle Ullrich, Bayne's great-great-granddaughter, said she lived at Salubria for 20 years. She supported the plan to perform archaeological investigations, but wants the parcel preserved.

"The entire parcel of the Salubria property should be preserved as a place for contemplation, reconciliation and healing for some of the things that happened here," she said.

ewagner@gazette.net