Despite fierce opposition from environmental groups, the National Capital Planning Commission voted Sept. 5 to approve a renovation plan for Rock Creek Park Golf Course that involves cutting down at least 1,070 mature trees.
Nearly everyone agrees that the historic public golf course needs some love: the turf has bald spots, plant growth has rendered several holes unplayable and one National Park Service report described the current clubhouse as “functionally obsolete.”
However, criticism of the nature and scale of the changes — not only from environmentalists but also from some golfers and nearby residents — led the Planning Commission to postpone its final approval when the project first came up for a vote in May.
At the Sept. 5 meeting, public input lasted more than seven hours.
“Those of us that live in the vicinity of the park that are not living in multimillion-dollar mansions — we vote, we watch birds too, and we care about the entire park,” Ayanna Mackins Free, a Ward 4 mom of four, said in her testimony before last week’s vote. “I, like so many others who have spoken, envision Rock Creek Park as a respected member of our family.”
The National Park Service (NPS), which owns the golf course along with the rest of the park, crafted the rehabilitation plan alongside the National Links Trust, a nonprofit founded in 2019. In 2020, National Links Trust signed a 50-year lease with the National Park Service, taking over management of Langston, East Potomac and Rock Creek Park golf courses.
Teeing Up Major Changes
While all three of the Park Service-owned facilities are slated for improvements under the agreement, Rock Creek Park Golf Course is up first because it’s in the worst shape, National Links Trust co-founder Mike McCartin explained.
“[Rock Creek] Golf Course sees by far the least amount of play and does the worst of the three golf courses,” McCartin said. “People who live in this area are driving to East Potomac or to Langston instead of playing here. And we hear all the time that [people] wish Rock Creek was in better condition and that there weren’t problems where you lose the ball immediately off of every hole.”
The golf course improvements include a brand-new clubhouse, a nine-hole regulation course, a shorter nine-hole par-3 course, and a driving range. Renovations will likely cost between $25 million and $35 million, and are expected to take two years, according to the National Links Trust. The nonprofit will pay for the entire project, and other upfront costs, through loans and its own fundraising.
Opponents to the rehabilitation plan have raised questions about the National Links Trust’s motivations and ability to execute the project, in part because the organization — founded one year before inking the deal with the National Park Service — has no track record of similar endeavors. Several advocates, including Mackins Free, shared concerns about conflicts of interest in the planning process.
The nonprofit’s website lists Troon, the world’s largest golf club management company, as one of its top donors. According to the lease, National Links Trust plans to contract Troon to manage the course. Another donor listed on the website is Quinn Evans, an architecture firm that designed the renovations. The company appears to have contributed to the project’s environmental assessment, which the National Park Service cited in its determination that the project “would not have a significant effect.”
“[The National Park Service] stands to benefit if they write a report that says there’s no major impact,” said Mackins Free in an interview. “Show me a report from an outside agency that has no dog in this fight.”
National Park Service program manager Michael Stachowicz said that the agency needed to weigh both natural and historical preservation on the site. Prominent golf architect William S. Flynn designed the course during the “Golden Age of Golf” in the early 1920s, and it originally had a full 18 holes.
The agency had initially considered returning the course to its 1927 state, Stachowicz said, but rejected the idea because it would have required taking down more than 2,500 trees.
“It was just too many trees to come out — we couldn’t even really stomach that,” Stachowicz said.
In the current plan, two of the unplayable holes will remain closed permanently and turned into meadows.
Environmental Impact Mitigation Efforts — Green Groups Say They’re Not Up to Par
In total, the Rock Creek Park Golf Course rehabilitation project plans to add just over 12 acres of meadows, planted with pollinators, grasses and other native plants.
It also aims to plant three new trees for every healthy, native tree removed. Of the 1,070 trees that will be cut down during the plan’s first phase, a little over 700 would fall into that category.
In a second phase of the plan, up to 223 more healthy, native trees could be removed.
Environmental advocates like Ward 8 Woods’ Nathan Harrington point out that new saplings are poor replacements for the enormous, mature trees that will be lost.
“You’re rolling the dice, hoping that the tree will survive, and waiting decades for it to get big enough to where it can soak up as much water as the one that you cut down; sequester as much carbon as the one that you cut down; provide as much support for pollinators and seeds and nuts for the animals to eat,” Harrington said in an interview. “All of these things, these ecosystem services, as they say, are greater the older and the larger the tree is.”
In addition to the loss of habitat and food from the trees’ removal, advocates worried about the nighttime lighting included in the driving range and other parts of the new design. Light pollution causes serious harm to ecosystems because many animals rely heavily on natural cycles of sunlight and darkness.
“The golf course and adjacent forests are a refuge of darkness in an overlit metropolis,” said Wayne Savage, a representative of DarkSky DC, during testimony on Sept. 5. “Five species of bats are found in the park, including two facing extinction. In short, the site is uniquely dark, and its ecosystem is uniquely dependent on darkness.”
At a press conference two days ahead of the Planning Commission’s vote, activists from Extinction Rebellion DC brought elaborate costumes to highlight some of the endangered species that live in and around the course, including northern long-eared bats, purple martins and American elms.
Stachowicz said that the plan would not negatively impact endangered species, and that the National Park Service had consulted with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Meadows, he said, serve as important habitat just like trees — and meadows are far more scarce in the District.
But in testimony to the National Capital Planning Commission, some of the plan’s opponents noted that the lease agreement does not include a binding requirement for National Links Trust to reserve dedicated funds for the promised environmental upkeep.
“Without safeguards in place, there is a serious risk that the ecological restoration and long-term sustainability of the project could be compromised,” one written comment reads.
The Birdie’s Eye View — Impacts Beyond the Park
Tree loss and ecosystem damage can have serious impacts on humans, too.
The closest neighborhood to the Rock Creek Park Golf Course is Brightwood. It’s a majority-Black neighborhood where lots of Ethiopian and Salvadoran immigrants have settled. The area experiences the urban heat island effect, where surfaces like buildings and pavement reflect heat and cause some places to get far hotter than others, even within a single city.
Even though Brightwood is right next to Rock Creek Park, the neighborhood can get up to 10 degrees hotter than other parts of the District with more tree cover and green space, according to reporting from The Washington Post earlier this year.
As greenhouse gas emissions continue to trap heat inside the planet, the heat island effect will only become more of a problem.
“These neighborhoods need relief from the heat of the urban heat island effect,” Carol Spring, an activist with Extinction Rebellion DC, said in an interview. “Our summers keep getting hotter and hotter, so we need these trees.”
Mackins Free lives a 10-minute walk from Rock Creek Park Golf Course and said temperatures in her neighborhood drop noticeably the closer she gets to the tree canopy. A cancer survivor who recently finished a course of chemotherapy, she places great value on the cooling and calming effects of being in the park.
“One of the parts of therapy, of getting back to life and back in action, was to be outside and be in nature,” Mackins Free said. “So [the park] is near and dear to me.”
At the same time, the National Park Service and National Links Trust argue that the golf course’s improvements will make the natural space accessible to a broader audience. Having a driving range allows people who are new to golf to enjoy the site and practice the sport in a way that’s not possible on the current, more difficult course. The lease agreement includes requirements to host programming with partner organizations like First Tee, which helps kids develop life skills through learning to play golf.
“[It can] appeal to a wider group of people, and that’s what you want to do,” Stachowicz said. “You want people to care about this land, because if people don’t care about it, then it goes away.”