Two new fire stations to be built in Bowie

Sites recommended based on future growth

The second, which Bowie city officials only learned of this month, will be located on Church Road near Mount Oak and Woodmore roads.

Bowie city officials said they saw information about the Church Road station this month in the 2007 Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission’s Preliminary Public Safety Master Plan.

City Manager David Deutsch said the city did not request a new station on Church Road, but would welcome it.

‘‘This one is a future planned facility that we just saw in a [Park and Planning] budget document. It’s not something we’ve been working on. I certainly would expect to support it,” Deutsch said.

Maj. Rich Lambdin of the fire department’s office of research, planning and development, said locations for recommended new stations are chosen based on response times, demand for service, and projected future growth in different areas of the county.

Lambdin said no timeline has been set to build the Church Road station, whose construction has not yet been added to the county’s 2008-2013 Capital Improvement Program.

The station is not yet on the county’s priority list because the new Northview station and the existing stations on St. Joseph’s Drive and Ardwick-Ardmore Road will provide adequate emergency coverage of the Church Road area for the time being, Lambdin said.

Chris Izzo, planning coordinator with the M-NCPPC, said a station was recommended for that site because future population growth would require improved emergency response times.

‘‘We want to cover the entire county,” Izzo said. ‘‘We want to treat everyone the same no matter what the population is, and so the plan strategically places the stations to fill in the gaps.”

According to the Sept. 6 Bowie city manager’s report, the rationale for the new station is to provide emergency services within the seven-minute response time standard as the population grows in and around Church Road.

Construction of a new fire station in Prince George’s costs around $4.9 million after design, land acquisition, construction and other costs are factored in, Lambdin said.

The County Council and county Planning Board will hold a joint public hearing on the Prince George’s County Public Safety Facilities Master Plan at 7 p.m. Oct. 2 at the County Administration Building in Upper Marlboro.

The last comprehensive public safety facilities master plan was completed in 1990, but Izzo said the recommendations are reviewed frequently as plans are completed for different areas of the county.

In the meantime, Bowie residents will hear more about the Northview station at a city-sponsored meeting at Bowie City Hall on Wednesday. The meeting starts at 7 p.m.

City Planning Director Joe Meinert said the city is encouraging residents to attend the meeting and learn more about the facility and its operations.

‘‘We’re really grateful that the county is able to build the full-service [fire] station we’ve been after,” Meinert said.

E-mail Megan King at mking@gazette.net.