In 2019, a developer dropped $4.35 million to buy a coveted piece of land in Hyattsville, a city inside the Capital Beltway in Prince George’s County.

Now, after years of lawsuits and stymied development, the company wants to sell the least-desirable part, a flood-prone former parking lot next to the city’s biggest park, to the city for millions more than it paid for the larger parcel.

Owning this land would fulfill a dream for many Hyattsville leaders, who have watched the property become blighted. They hope to use it to expand park space near lower-income neighborhoods, and convinced state legislators to set aside money to help.

But Hyattsville officials can’t say what the property is really worth, and some residents fear the city may be about to overpay by millions and bail out the developer’s failed project.

After securing a $3.5 million grant from Maryland lawmakers, Hyattsville Mayor Robert Croslin urged colleagues at a May meeting to green-light the purchase at a vote Monday.

The debate in Hyattsville raises fresh questions about how Maryland lawmakers handled millions of dollars this year meant to fund parks in poor and polluted communities. The General Assembly drained the 2-year-old Greenspace Equity Program, designed to fund park projects through competitive applications, and divided its funding between three communities. One appropriation went to a project in Roland Park, a rich Baltimore neighborhood, while lawmakers pledged half the funds to Hyattsville.

A developer offered this same property to Hyattsville for millions of dollars less in 2018, but Council President Joseph Solomon suggested at the May meeting that the old price doesn’t matter, since the state contribution eases the city’s cost.

“We should be happy with that,” Solomon said. “I think it would be a mistake of immeasurable calamity to tell the state that we don’t want to use the $3.5 million.”

Lawmakers “would not be happy” if Hyattsville abandoned this effort now, Croslin added.

“It took quite a bit of work to convince the state to actually get involved in this project and to promise that money our way,” the mayor said, “because there were so many people who wanted to take that money in a different direction.”

Both Croslin and Solomon have pushed for a quick approval before three new council members are sworn in Monday evening.

Despite their urgency, the true value of the property, which is in an “underserved” area eligible for Greenspace money, remains unclear.

Hyattsville never had the land appraised, city spokesperson Cindy Zork said.

The Department of Natural Resources’ Greenspace applications calls for two appraisals on land acquisitions in the program.

The city does have a 2024 appraisal commissioned by the developer, Zork said. It’s also pursuing an assessment of its own, that won’t be finished until later this summer — after Monday’s vote.

Revised sale terms posted Friday afternoon in a council agenda for Monday’s meeting require the city to have two appraisals.

DNR officials believe communities awarded funds by the General Assembly still need to complete the application paperwork and go through the agency’s vetting, agency spokesperson AJ Metcalf said.

“The legislation that created the funding program set up clear guidance for how grant applications should be reviewed,” Metcalf said. “The department believes using this method, which includes the perspectives of local officials and community representatives who make up the Greenspace Equity Advisory Board, is the best way to ensure the most qualified applicants with beneficial projects receive funding through the program.”

Hyattsville and community advocates have battled for control of this land for years.

Once a parking lot for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission headquarters, the property was acquired by Annapolis developer Werrlein Companies in 2019, along with several acres across the street. Werrlein built homes on an elevated portion of the land, but the company has failed to do anything with the parking lot.

The developer had asked the city to pay $7.5 million for the property, accounting for the land’s value, improvements and “sunk costs” like taxes and maintenance, Zork said. But negotiations were continuing, she said.

Though the mayor and council president had pushed to accept Werrlein’s $7.5 million offer, the new terms posted Friday indicated the city had negotiated the price down to $6.5 million. In addition to requiring two appraisals, the new offer would have Werrlein address stormwater problems on the property, potentially saving the city hundreds of thousands in additional flood remediation costs.

Beyond expanding the park, Zork said Hyattsville doesn’t have funding or specific plans yet for how it would improve the new land.

Officials “recognize this rare opportunity to expand Driskell Park will ultimately advance our equity and environmental goals,” she said.

The state’s $3.5 million would come after purchase as a reimbursement, while the city intends to take on debt to cover the full cost.

The recent push to buy sparked skepticism from some residents, who worried at the recent meeting about overpaying for the land.

The developer offered Hyattsville more than a third of this lot for $250,000 in 2018, said Greg Smith, a board member with the group Sustainable Hyattsville, which has fought Werrlein’s project in court for years.

“There’s a hell of a big stretch between any of those numbers and $7.5 million,” Smith told the council. “It takes a fair amount of nerve for a company that operated and wrecked both parcels without even applying for the required permits to demand that the city pay $7.5 million for about half of the property.”

Neither Werrlein nor an attorney representing company responded to emailed requests for comment.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, largely defended the state grant.

Del. Nicole Williams, who represents Hyattsville and helped secure the Greenspace money for the city, said she tries to support funding requests from her constituent cities and declined to comment on the price concerns.

Sen. Craig Zucker, who chairs the Senate’s capital budget subcommittee, said he trusts the judgement of Hyattsville leaders and is happy to see state money leverage their goal.

“That is exactly what the budget is for,” Zucker said. “This is going to be a local issue, and my hope and expectation is that whatever they decide will be the reflection of what the town needs.”

The chair of the House capital budget subcommittee that gave the grant preliminary approval, Del. Mark Chang, said the Greenspace allocation still needs Board of Public Works approval, which he said should provide a backstop if the General Assembly erred.

“Now that we know what we know,” lawmakers can make improvements, Chang said.

For now, the property next to Driskell Park sits vacant, still tied up in court challenges.

Besides ripped up asphalt, a drainage pond and a few piles of unused stormwater pipes, the property looks much as it did when Werrlein bought it.

While the mayor and council president have pushed for the purchase, others argue the city is caving too easily.

In six years, the developer has done little, and city leaders should be hard bargainers, Councilman Danny Schaible told colleagues at the May meeting.

“I don’t care if we got $3.5 million of free dollars,” he said. “That makes no difference to Werrlein. These are still state or government expenditures.”