Planning Staff Oppose Rock Creek Hills For New B-CC Middle School
Staff recommendation comes ahead of a Monday Park and Planning advisory review for a new school site.
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County planning staff has come out against a recommendation to build a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school at Rock Creek Hills Park in Kensington.
The opinion rejects the findings of a site selection advisory committee, which in March set forth the park as the best publicly-owned site for the new school in the overcrowded cluster. The recommendation followed a revised site selection process, which was re-convened after an initial site selection process last year drew fire from neighbors and officials who questioned MCPS's transparency and civic engagement.
Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr added his stamp of approval to the recommendation last month. But the proposal to build a school at Rock Creek Hills Park has run into stiff opposition from some community members, and Montgomery County Planning Board chair Francoise Carrier has argued that citing a school is not a worthy reason to do away with park land.
In an April 2 staff recommendation, planners argued that Montgomery County Public Schools should pursue private sites for the new school, or consider Lynnbrook Park and the former Lynnbrook Elementary School in Bethesda or the former Montgomery Hills Junior High School site in Silver Spring.
The staff report also rejected the site selection committee’s alternate site proposal – North Chevy Chase Local Park. The loss of playing fields at North Chevy Chase and Rock Creek Hills would pose a “significant loss of recreation opportunities, in addition to the environmental costs associated with loss of forest,” the report read.
“Staff has premised its analysis of public properties examined by the MCPS site selection committee on the idea, articulated in the Chair letter of December 22, 2011 to Board of Education President Brandman, that “parks should not be made available for non-park purposes except in extraordinary circumstances.” This notion established the foundation of staff’s responses to the committee’s report. Neither response reflexively opposes the use of parkland for the new middle school,” the report read.
The staff recommendation comes ahead of an advisory review for the new middle school site, which is set to go before the Planning Board Monday, April 9, at 5 p.m. For more information about the hearing, visit the Park and Planning website.
Brian
3:23 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
Clearly the Parks (not Planning) department has ulterior motives and is driving the bus on this. Any planner that takes into account future needs and funding would be embarrassed by the suggested alternatives. There is no way any 10+ acre private site in the B-CC cluster could be purchased for a reasonable amount and the cost to break the current lease at Montgomery Hills would be in excess of $25 million, eliminating both as realistic alternatives. The Lynnbrook Elementary school site is significantly smaller than RCH and is much better suited to be an elementary school. Given the significant amount of high rise residential development occurring in downtown Bethesda over the next several years Lynnbrook will almost certainly need to be re-purposed as an elementary school in the not too distant future and if it is no longer available we'll be having to go through a similar process to this all over again.
Tom
5:46 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
Sorry, Brian, but it's not clear to me. Where do you get the support for these statements? Did you engage in pre-negotiation with the Montgomery Hills tenant? It can't be from the SSAC, because future residential development in downtown Bethesda wasn't vetted with any kind of detail. Further, if that development were an issue, then why were centrally located sites, like Norwood and Lynbrook eliminated, notwithstanding their superior conformance with the location criteria of the SSAC? They clearly would be "walkable" locations for all those new residents. And if "Lynnbrook will almost certainly need to be re-purposed as an elementary school in the not too distant future," then why was the site included in not one, but _two_ SSACs? It should never have been included in the first place.
All of these comments stand as striking evidence that the SSAC process was bungled again. By failing to define criteria completely and to assign weights to them, MCPS undermined reasoned analysis and sustained its site shell game. So, when they realized P&P had a way to set a footprint for Lynbrook nearly identical to RCHP with less harm and cost, they moved the shells and out came the elementary school argument.
You want the school in RCH; I get it, but don't insult the collective intelligence by arguing that the decision somehow is the result of a rational process.
Brian
6:24 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
It's not clear to you because you live across the street from the park and are grasping at any straw possible.
Tom
7:30 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
For the second time, I don't live across from the park, but it is interesting that you reach for that response when confronted with substance. If I'm wrong, show me. Otherwise, agree to disagree. Reasonable people can disagree.
Brian
8:22 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
Keep grasping....
Rene
5:16 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
Both schools and parks serve equally important public goods. We cannot usurp parks whenever we have a need for schools simply because we choose to view parks as a cheap alternative to buying land. Using parkland for school construction in "extraordinary circumstances" is not only a sound and appropriate position for Parks, but also for the Planning Dept that can reasonably foresee this park-grab as a slippery slope in the future
David
6:08 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
This is not a simple, black and white park grab. RCH Park is land previously owned by MCPS that was given back to the county with a reclaim provision should a school be needed. Clearly, Park and Planning have their interests to protect, but they don't have unchecked power against all other interests in the county.
I'm all for healthy debate on the best possible site, but if 2 site selections are viewed as sufficient I'm wondering what will suffice. I'm afraid this has devolved into a bureaucratic snit between agencies.
Tom
7:53 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
Under normal circumstances, you might be right, but if the two site selection processes themselves are fundamentally flawed, then maybe it's not a bureaucratic snit. Maybe the organization managing the process just isn't able to do it correctly.
David
9:35 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
Maybe, but the answer to that question is probably in the eye of the beholder. Do you really believe this is not in part a tussle between agencies?
It's pretty easy to criticize every process, and to think there is a objective, quantitative method resulting in some clear choice that would satisfy everyone is beyond my level of comprehension and skepticism. It's like saying that an estimate from a paid consultant somehow is now the gospel truth, and it completely invalidates all other estimates. All it tells me is there are two estimates. Interesting data point, but not the only one.
Tom
11:16 pm on Thursday, April 5, 2012
I dont think it's just looking for some little hiccup in the process. That would be unreasonable. I think a key complaint centers around the absence of a common set of job components (criteria) defined the same way for what we're comparing, and weighted consistently. Without those, the stage is set for a potential tussle because stakeholders won't perceive honesty, fairness, and accuracy in the decision making process. MCPS Planning simply hasn't been able to (wanted to?) design a functional process.
leonard raskin
9:57 am on Friday, April 6, 2012
I certainly do not understand why constructing a new school over top of an existing primary school has not been entertained? Why not go vertical? One suggestion is to add 3 stories over Rosemary (they plan a renovation anyway). The playgrounds during the school day except for lunch can be used by the middle school, or the short distance to rosemary park can be used for gym class. The parking can be solved by adding a parking garage and be topped off with the
leonard raskin
9:58 am on Friday, April 6, 2012
The parking garage can be topped off with 2 gyms and they would not disturb the on going classes
David
9:37 am on Sunday, April 8, 2012
You know, Leonard is right. Who are we kidding? This part of the county is 'urban' and should be planned with that mindset. MCPS has already scaled back the 'ideal minimum size' for a middle school from 20 to 10 acres. And that's without fundamentally changing their ideas of construction. Schools will have to be taller and parking lots will need to be re-thought by MCPS. What commerical builder would plan for that much surface parking into a new building project? Park on the roof. Park Under. BOE owned sites like Lynnbrook should be looked at twice as hard as any other site because it's already school property. The new school- that everyone agrees is needed - would be moving forward.