Montgomery County launches new open space grant initiative
Municipalities and organizations in the county can apply for open space preservation grants starting Sept. 1.

Linwood Park in Ardmore. Montgomery County's new Montco Forever Green program seeks to preserve open space. (Montgomery County website)
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Montgomery County is launching Montco Forever Green, a grant initiative aimed at supporting open space preservation projects across the county.
Starting Sept. 1, nonprofit organizations and the county’s 62 municipalities can apply to receive grants of up to $500,000 for open space preservation projects of any size in rural, suburban and urban areas. Funds can help with both fee title and conservation easement acquisitions.
The planning commission will accept and review applications on a rolling basis. Feasible applications will be sent to the open space board, which will then recommend projects for a final vote by the board of commissioners.
Bill Hartman, trails and open space planning manager at the Montgomery County Planning Commission, said the initiative is meant to expand awareness of the county’s support for open space preservation.
“There were some municipalities that weren’t even aware that the county had this money available for Open Space Preservation, and while we were successfully granting open space funds for really good projects around the county, we felt that there was this whole universe of other potential open space projects that weren’t being tapped into, simply because of a lack of awareness, or that there could have been a more ambitious effort to get the word out,” he said.
Hartman said the program is a continuation of the county’s “strong history” of open space preservation. He said initiatives in the ‘90s and early 2000s preserved thousands of acres of open space in the county. To date, Hartman said, there are more than 43,000 acres of protected open space in Montgomery County.
He added that the new initiative expands the definition of what open space is.
“I think if you were to ask your average person on the street what open space is, they would probably say, ‘Oh, well, it’s large, undeveloped, natural areas,’” he said. “And that’s true, those are considered open space, but open space is viewed differently by people who might live in a more urbanized setting. An eighth of an acre pocket park in the middle of an urban area is equally as valued by the people who live in that area as a large expanse might be to someone in, say, the western part of the county … So we wanted to expand our definition of open space to cover that full spectrum of our communities, so that everybody is able to enjoy open space across the county and have access to it.”
The county’s capital improvement plan budget has allocated $2 million for fiscal year 2025 to fund the grants. The initiative is expanding access by lowering the match required for grants to 25%, Hartman said. Previously, county grants required a one-to-one match from the organization or municipality.
Stressing the importance of the initiative, Hartman said the benefits of open space preservation range from environmental to economic.
From an environmental perspective, open space mitigates flood waters, provides habitat for wildlife, sequesters carbon and improves air and water quality, he said.
According to a 2022 study by the planning commission, proximity to open spaces provides economic benefits as well by increasing home and property values and generating jobs and spending in the area. Access to open space also can help improve residents’ physical and mental well-being, the study found.
“That’s the answer to, ‘Why are we doing this?’” Hartmand said. “It’s because it’s got a lot of tangible benefits, from economic to environmental to, I guess I would say more qualitative as well.”

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