BLOG: Study Says Site of Proposed School Too Small, Expensive
Photos
Last year, a "feasibility study"* regarding the proposal to replace Rock Creek Hills Park with a middle school was completed. It is prudent to ask: What does the 2011 feasibility study say about Rock Creek Hills Park as a potential middle school site?
The feasibility study illuminates site deficiencies that are consequences of the decision made decades ago that reduced the site, when one-third of the former Kensington Junior High School site was deeded to the Housing Opportunities Commission, which built what is now the Kensington Park Retirement Community on much of the site of the old school (please click on the first "thumbnail" above). Rock Creek Hills Park fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) middle school site evaluation criteria.
The feasibility study shows that Rock Creek Hills Park is too small.
• In June, when MCPS and its outside architect, Samaha Associates, presented the first design proposals, two of the three options routed school buses over basketball courts (please click on second thumbnail), and offered a glimpse into the difficulty associated with building on the severe topology of this undersized site.
• In October, all final feasibility study options used "overlaid" playing fields that would limit athletics, and located "portable classrooms" (trailers) on space that would otherwise be used for sports (please click on third thumbnail).
• In December, the MCPS director of construction wrote that "none of the three [final feasibility study] options provide the 125 on-site parking [spaces] called for in the educational specifications."
• A middle school on the site of the park would be, of all the middle schools in our county, the one on the smallest site without an adjacent park to provide additional acreage and playing fields for student use. The site would not provide parity with other middle schools in the county.
The feasibility study shows that Rock Creek Hills Park has inadequate access.
One official site criterion is "access," which has three parts: Frontage on a primary (70 foot right-of-way) road; three access points (for safety, in order to separate buses, cars, and trucks); and community sidewalks. The park fails to meet all of these elements, and in particular, none of the final feasibility study options have three access points.
The feasibility study shows that the proposed construction would obliterate Rock Creek Hills Park.
• In July, the Montgomery County Parks Director told Kensington Patch that construction would "obliterate" the park.
• In August, Montgomery County Public Schools appeared to agree that "there's not going to be any trees left."
Building a three-to-four story structure on the steep slope of the small site would be expensive.
An independent construction budget estimate (ICBE) commissioned by the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association finds that the feasibility study underestimated costs by approximately $18 million. The ICBE puts 2017 total costs at $64.5 million, almost 40 percent above the MCPS estimate. This does not include the estimated $6 million that would have to be paid to the Parks Department to acquire the site.
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*To see the MCPS director of long range planning explain that the purpose of an MCPS "feasibility study" is not to determine whether something is feasible, click here.
mpd
4:02 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
The reality is that the County just doesn't have much land left. Therefore, the large, expansive school grounds that we have become accustomed to seeing over the past few decades and have come to think of as the norm are a thing of the past. Building up and making a better use of more compact space is going to be the new norm. The photos above do not have the effect on me that the author intended. Rather, they look like a pretty good example of making the best use of the limited space available. Is this site ideal? Of course not. But let's not make apples (i.e., the grounds that were available when our existing schools were built) to oranges (i.e., the grounds available for new schools going forward) comparisons. These plans represent the best the County can do with what it has available. I've never seen an argument from the RCH community that amounted to anything more than "stick it in somebody else's park."
Tom
5:41 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
You’re implying that there's no objective basis for RCH to oppose building a school in RCHP. As the record demonstrates, however, that implication is just not true.
The RCH community provided an independent expert’s analysis showing that construction costs would be up to >40% more than the MCP Feasibility Study. The community identified required reimbursement to P&P of >$6M for improvements. The community highlighted the 5.1 acres of forestation impact (that’s MCPS’ number), including specimen trees (from MCPS’ survey), the mitigation of which, will carry even more significant cost. The community pointed to the weak analytics, process flaws, erroneous information, and manifest bias in the committee’s activities, some of which even were echoed by a few supporters of building in the park. In sum, with objective data, the community showed that the selection of this site makes no sense.
Still, don’t let that sway you. Forget the community; look at other Minority Reports. Putting aside East Bethesda’s “stick it in somebody else’s park” (BTW, have you criticized their position?), two county officials criticized the SSAC process and decision, as did the BCC NAACP Parents’ Council. Are _they_ motivated by the desire to “stick it in someone else’s park?” One county representative even identified a suitable site that required the surrender of a park!
Your comment is not intellectually honest. Nor is it fair.
ED
5:41 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
If you read the notes from the meetings on the site selection (MNCPPC website), you'll see that many properties owned by the Board of Education were disqualified because they did not have 10.1 acres of "buildable area". If "building up and making the best use of more compact space is going to be the new norm", perhaps the site selection committee should go back to the drawing board and evaluate the County owned properties again. I don't live in the RCH community, but I, too, have problems with the BOE selecting park sites for school sites - especially since the County still owns many of the sites that originally housed public schools.
Mr. Ed
8:14 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr recommended Rock Creek Hills Local Park in Kensington as the site for a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase middle school
“I believe that the site selection process this time around was extremely thorough and clearly everybody did their job,” Starr said Friday. “I think our schools are community assets, and there will be grounds that can be used by the public. They will be able to continue to avail themselves of our outdoor area"
No, I did not write his talking points.
Finally, can we please move forward?
Brian
9:18 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012
Great news!