Sunday, May 10, 2009
I am writing to provide compelling details about the decision to purchase property three miles south of Lovettsville for the construction of three schools.
Before the county supervisors changed the zoning in western Loudoun County, many properties were sold to developers that have since subdivided the land and installed wells so that the properties would be grandfathered in at greater densities (one house per three acres).
More than 2,000 homes are slated to be built in western Loudoun, many of them in the northwest corner, where these schools are planned. Another 266 homes have pending applications for approval. At our current rate of 0.83 students per single-family detached house, we will have 1,894 students in need of classroom space.
We just finished a boundary process for elementary schools in western Loudoun; our total student capacity is 4,544. By 2013-14, we will have 4,165 students, which means there will be only 379 elementary seats not occupied in 2014. Hence, the urgency to site another elementary school as soon as possible.
Throughout Virginia and in every other state, schools are built in rural areas, often on private utilities and surrounded by grazing cattle or growing vegetables. In Loudoun, we should have disallowed all residential building in western Loudoun if we were going to refuse to build schools for the children. We can't pay Maryland tuition to educate our students living in northwest Loudoun; they are our responsibility, and they must have classrooms near where they live.
If we can't build on dirt roads (Grubb property), if we can't use private utilities, if we can't be within reach of a farm, if we can't build in Lovettsville because the streets are too narrow for buses and if the only property we can use is owned by developers or farmers who are not willing to sell, we are in deep, deep trouble.
The School Board is advised to plan ahead, but when we do, we are criticized for paying too much money or putting the schools in the wrong place.
The families with children affected by this decision are writing about it. But there are children not born yet who will need the kindergarten classrooms to be built there in six years.
The majority of those who are protesting do not have children in the school system. They are being told that this land is farm property, which it has not been for three years; that we will be using 72,000 gallons of water per day. when the real figure is more like 17,313; and that this spells the end for farm businesses nearby, when that is not the case (they have their own access to their property, their own wells and their own customer base). Just look at Tysons Corner, where houses abut a farm that is still doing business on Route 7.
We will not be polluting the soil or water, and we must prove, long before we build, that there will be no disturbance of water resources in the immediate area.
The School Board and the Board of Supervisors have treaded softly on condemnation of land, and rightfully so. This makes us even more concerned that if we do not secure property now, the only land left will have homes or businesses on it or will have an unwilling seller. The only way to avoid condemnation is to seek a willing seller (which we have) and purchase property before it has people living on it or businesses in operation (which we have).
I ask you to think of the kindergartner I referred to above. He is counting on all of us to think of his future and the future of his friends.
Priscilla Godfrey, Blue Ridge representative, Loudoun County School Board
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