By Sydney Wilmer
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Last week's Loudoun County School Board vote authorizing the purchase of property south of Route 50 for two schools is stirring a controversy over how the board selects school sites and whether county supervisors should be more involved in the process.
The Board of Supervisors has the final say in approving land purchases for schools. Some supervisors say the process would be smoother if they knew earlier about sites under consideration and could weigh in before negotiations between school officials and landowners were completed.
"We would like, as a board, to be more involved at an earlier point," said Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), who said he has concerns about the proposed 99-acre site for a middle school and a high school on Lenah Road.
School Board members, however, defended the system for acquiring land for schools and warned that overhauling the process could lead to delays in construction that would aggravate school crowding.
Supervisors rejected another land deal last week involving 174 acres at Evergreen Mills and Red Hill roads. The supervisors said the $11.5 million purchase price that school officials negotiated was too high. School officials said the land was a good value and represented a rare, cost-saving opportunity to build three schools on one site.
Proposed School Site Near Lenah Run
This parcel of land was approved for purchase by the Loudoun County School Board last week. The Department of Planning is currently debating the issue. (Sydney Wilmer)
Debate was stirred last week over whether or not this property near Lenah Run is right for a new school. (Sydney Wilmer)
Now the School Board is bracing for criticism of the proposed Lenah Road location for a middle school that would open in 2010 and a high school to open in 2011.
Some residents have said that the property is too removed from the communities the schools will serve and that building the schools could spur residential development. School officials reject those arguments and say that crowding at nearby schools will become acute if the supervisors insist on restarting the search for sites.
"If properties continue to be overturned" by the supervisors, "it could mean overcrowding for nearly a decade," said School Board Vice Chairman John Stevens (Potomac).
Cheryl Bacak, president of the PTA for Freedom High School in South Riding and Mercer Middle School in Aldie, agreed. "If we do not get a new school in the area soon, this could be catastrophic for our children," she said.
The Lenah Road site, surrounded mostly by undeveloped land, is in the county's so-called transition area, which is meant to serve as a buffer between the suburban east and rural west. The parcel is owned by Greenvest, a developer that lobbied unsuccessfully for a measure that would have raised the maximum residential area in the transition area and allowed construction of more than 30,000 additional homes. The previous Board of Supervisors ultimately rejected that proposal, known as Dulles South.
Related Stories
Related Coverage
Advertisement
Loudoun resident Steve Hines, who was an active opponent of Dulles South, said that putting two large schools in the transition area is not what the community needs.
"The site will serve students in other communities," he said. "This is not a community school."
But school officials, who agreed to pay $20 million for the property, say that suitable sites closer to South Riding would be far more expensive. Further delays in picking the site also will add to land acquisition and school construction costs, said School Board Chairman Robert F. DuPree Jr. (Dulles).
"Money is an issue," DuPree said. "If [the supervisors] reject this site, they have to go through a new study period that will increase the overall cost."
Some county officials are not convinced, however, by the argument that the site selection process operates on a tight, delicate schedule that cannot withstand disruptions.
Loudoun Planning Commission member Sandra Chaloux said that if a good alternative site emerges, it could get approval from the commission and supervisors in four to six months, which would not create serious delays in school construction.
"I think we have plenty of time," said Chaloux, who was an active opponent of the Dulles South development proposal before her appointment to the Planning Commission this year.
Chaloux said she does not believe the Lenah Run property is the best location for the two schools and would rather see more schools built in suburban areas.
"It bothers me, this sense of panic [the School Board is] creating in the community," she said. "We owe it to the taxpayers to look [for more options]. With an investigation into another site and possibly a different process, we could offer a cheaper solution."
Another issue with the location is traffic. Although critics of the site say that Route 50 is overburdened with cars, School Board members say that most of the traffic to the schools would be going west, in the opposite direction of the morning rush.
Marchant Schneider, a special project manager with the Loudoun Planning Department, said there are tentative plans for a roundabout or stoplight in the area that would help relieve congestion.
But Laura Tekrony, a mother of two who lives in the area, said the roads would not be able to support the additional traffic. "That area wasn't set up for that type of campus," she said.
Stevens noted that the normal review by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors is a lengthy one. He said he is wary of those who have come to a decision on the property so early in the process.
"There is a process ahead of us, and that process allows for public input," he said. "The responsible thing to do is to wait for that process to play itself out. I am not impressed with people who make up their minds before all of the evidence is in."
Copyright 2009 The Washington Post Company
