Citizen’s Forum by Theresa Defino: After The Beall’s Grant Ruling
Sep 14, 2010 17:25 - 31 Comments
This Citizen Forum entry is by Theresa Defino. She delivered it at the 9/13/10 Mayor and Council meeting:
While I am speaking during Citizen’s Forum, I would also like my comments to be considered under the public hearing on city growth scheduled for later in this meeting.
As you know, last month the court invalidated approval for Beall’s Grant II, saying the city failed, basically, to do the math correctly when it relied on MCPS estimates of how many elementary-school-aged children would be generated by this affordable housing development. This was a blow to all of us who worked for more than two years to see this project break ground.
By the way-no one call tell me, had the city figured the capacity through some fictitious “correct” way, what the estimate would have been. Apparently the principle — not the real impact — is all that matters here.
Now there’s no room left at Beall Elementary, as future capacity is being held by luxury apartment buildings that got in the queue before Montgomery Housing Partnership.
Meanwhile, there’s a house directly across the street from Beall Elementary. It’s a tear-down — as a huge sign trumpets that a “classic home starting at $800,000″ will go up in its place. The future children of these new, wealthy residents will be able to go to Beall, despite it being over capacity, and that is perfectly legal.
A few doors away, a three-bedroom house at 322 Beall Avenue recently sold for $630,00. On the other side of Beall Elementary, on Lynch, a five-bedroom split foyer is listed at $598,000.
I guess the new owners of both these homes might have a few kids, and they, too, can send them to Beall Elementary.
This house on Beall Ave., incidentally, is two doors away from some of the folks who filed the suit to stop Beall’s Grant. Presumably, it’s OK if their neighbors have kids who go to Beall, because they don’t come from low or middle income families.
People who can’t afford these prices but want something new and nice-like MHP was planning for them — can’t move to the west end if they have kids.
I refuse to accept that the last two years I spent advocating for Beall’s Grant II were in vain. I ask that the city and the mayor and council take action in the wake of this court ruling so that this project can go forward. Work with the school system to enlarge or replace Beall Elementary.
Review the long list of West End projects hogging the future school capacity to see if any can be removed, especially those that are not financially viable in a recession. Study reworking the APHO to give priority to lower and moderate income projects, and to non-profit developers.
We must find ways to increase the housing AND school capacity for low and moderate income children. Unless we address this inequity, what we are left with is nothing short of economic segregation and forced childlessness.
Anyone is invited to address Rockville’s Mayor and Council at Citizen’s Forum, before every meeting. We invite anyone who does so to send us there remarks, which we will consider for publication at Rockville Central, as a public service. Like all opinion pieces, our publishing a Citizen Forum article does not we mean we endorse the author’s opinion.
Your issues with housing cost are a red-herring and make absolutely no sense. If a single-home is already in the Beall footprint and it is knocked down and replaced with another single-family home, the number of homes with access to Beall Elementary remains the same whether that home is $80K or $800k.
If a single family home is knocked down and replaced with 75 single-family units, Beall now has to accommodate the possibility of an additional 74 families. Who lives in the homes, how much they paid are not an issue. Someone with 75 elemtary-aged children could move into a single family home putting a tremendous strain on the school, but that’s pretty unlikely.
Beall Elementary is already over capacity, its play areas are almost completely consumed by trailers and you imply that there is no impact by BG2 but that due to some technicality the project is being stopped. In fact, they used erroneous numbers in order to make it seem like the project would not exceed the capacity of the school when it was already well over its designed capacity.
If your issue is that rich folks are ruining the neighborhood, fight for restrictions that prevent mcmansions replacing existing homes. But your argument equating adding 60+ new homes in the footprint to replacing existing homes with more expensive ones is ridiculous.
Steve, perhaps you are new to this issue. I am happy to clarify.
Beall’s Grant, the proposed affordable housing building, was estimated to add only 8 students to Beall Elementary.
It was redesigned with smaller-sized apartments (one bedrooms vs. three) and with only 74 units, compared to the original design of 109 units. So it would have generated even fewer than 8 students.
People are being priced out of the neighborhood, and an affordable rental building is much needed.
My first point was that the estimate of 8 seems lowball and the school is already past capacity so any additions would violate both the letter and spirit of the existing regulations.
My second point was take away 1 then add 1 is a net gain of zero. Painting the school’s exceeding its capacity as some sort of class warfare issue by directing attention to the cost of existing and rebuilt homes in the neighborhood is simply inflammatory and confuses two different issues.
Agreed affordable housing is much needed but juking the stats to make BG2 seem like it has virtually no-impact seems to be what the pro-dev side was called on. Some folks may want to stop any low-income housing in the neighborhood, I’m not one of them.
I do however take great issue with the fact that the school is already well over capacity and no new development should be approved if it adds to that problem without changes being made to compensate, either reshaping the footprint, expanding the school, something that mitigates worsening the existing problem. However, those changes need to be in place before compounding the capacity issue.
I’ll admit I’ve only followed the issue as a bystander so far, but as now it will affect my daughters I intend to become more involved and to apply my expertise toward fighting any end runs on the existing regulations.
I laughed when I realized that when my lovely fiancée and her three kids moved in with me and my three kids this summer, they represented almost half of the impact that Beall’s Grant II was projected to have on Beall Elementary. Should we have run our plans past the Planning Commission?
I will echo the criticism of the APFO I have seen here — it does not seem like good public policy for the city to foreclose any new public housing based on public facilities it does not control nor influence. Beall is likely to be somewhat over capacity permanently, given the county’s lack of responsiveness on these things; can we *never* add *any* sort of public housing to our downtown?
I’d like to remind everyone about the 10-story apartment complex planned for 255 North Washington, the site of the current Bank of America building. That project will have at least 150 rental units, and will probably contribute at least 20-30 children to Bell Elementary’s student body. But, because that developer was able to work with Larry Giammo and his cronies to fix the system and grant them exemptions, they don’t produce a torch-wielding mob screaming about how many kids are invading the school system.
It’s that kind of blatant elitist favoritism that makes this whole issue so disgusting.
The claim of “forced childlessness” is rather odd, since apparently the exact opposite is the situation at Beall ES…it is full. “Economic segregation” is a made up term for stating the obvious — that more desirable places to live cost more. The West End has a very broad spectrum of housing options, incomes, and people. The only thing that’s really changed in recent years is reflected in Theresa’s included real-estate sales report. But one should certainly not fault a family for selling their long-owned property for a huge cash gain — nor bash a newcomer who thinks our neighborhood is good enough to spend 800K on a home there.
The APFO was passed as a very sensible measure in response to citizen’s claims that “all this development is taking place and its overcrowding our schools and overtaxing our utilities.” The concept is simple. Although the City does not direct school capacity or funding, our citizens sure do use those schools. So, somewhere, somebody does the math on these things.
KSI has not been built - this housing crash was visible by even 2005 when they got their permit. Duball has not either. Its a $33M parking lot with a use permit. Theresa accurately notes these projects may be providing “phantom kids” into the calculation; while a group like MHP is shovel-ready(?) to get underway and cannot. These projects have each been given more than the standard 2 extensions on their use permits, citing “economic situations.”
Fairness would dictate letting those use permits expire, and freeing up the school capacity. Rolling back a reasonable law because of other factors would be a mistake. Developers, whoever they are, are always going to take advantage of the infrastructure and overburden it without bearing the true costs - unless they are made to.
With a kid 2 years away from kindergarten, I think of these things. If APFO keeps there form being class sizes of 40 children at Beall, thats good.
I’d like to provide information from the City on the two use permits.
KSI has not been given more than the standard two extensions. Here is the documentation from the City:
http://www.rockvillemd.gov/government/commissions/pc/2009/reports/USE2006-00697.pdf
It states the second extension will expire on December 7, 2010 with no further extensions possible.
Duball also has not had more than the two extensions and the documentation from the City is here:
http://www.rockvillemd.gov/government/commissions/pc/2010/reports/USE2006-00699.pdf
With the two extensions, the use permit would be in effect until May 23, 2011.
It feels like every late summer/early fall it’s time to rehash the Bealls GrantII issue. Instead of listening to emotional rhetoric let’s just stick to the facts. Currently there are 716 students enrolled at Beall which has a capacity for 540 students. These 716 students actually go to Beall every day, they are not being held in reserve by some future development that has already been approved. There are 8 portable classrooms, the 2 that were added last year that do take up playground space. Using last year’s data 25% of the students were on some sort of free and reduced lunch and the school has a wide range of diverse students. See link below which reflects last year’s enrollment data.
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02207.pdf
College Gardens and Ritchie Park Elementary schools are also grossly overcrowded. If the city wants to increase the affordable housing and the school capacity then they need to start by figuring how to deal with school capacity before developing more.
Saying economic segregation is a made-up term does not diminish the fact that it exists around BGII and Beall Elementary. I am not an economist, city planner or sociologist. I am a mom and a journalist, and the term occurred to me as I was drafting my short talk and in conversations with my son.
The indisputable fact is that those who have opposed BGII, particularly the litigants, have never been concerned with the children estimated to come from any development other than BGII. And they have done nothing positive, like work with MCPS, to find solutions to the over-crowding. Why aren’t they active in the Parent’s Coalition or PTA, including working together with College Garden parents? I find this curious, distressing, but most of all, hypocritical.
Instead, there have been two years of heated rhetoric and incendiary remarks about reducing property values, increasing traffic and escalating crime-none of which were supported by facts.
It is also disingenuous to suggest this argument is about paying more for a more desirable neighborhood. Anyone who knows where BGII is located knows it is adjacent to a gas station and a funeral home. While our area is lovely, it is not on the whole the most desirable area in the county, or even in Rockville.
If you want to live within walking distance of the Rockville metro and are not wealthy you are out of luck.
There is also something else that I recall about the two developments. While their site plans might expire, I believe they are part of PDUs and the approved units will remain approved long after the site plan.
John Spano yes the College Gardens and Ritchie Park Elementary schools are grossly overcrowded. It is the Montgomery Count Public School (MCPS) system that must deal with the issue. Other schools in Montgomery County are also over crowded. Richard Montgomery High School was under enrolled before the IB program in RMHS was approved by MCPS. At one time there was a recommendation to close RMHS.
The City of Rockville has no jurisdiction over the county schools. Even without new development the school capacity is an issue. Boundary changes, busing students to other schools and opening closed schools are options that are not being talked about.
Students no matter where they live are required to be educated. If all the private school students didn’t attend the private schools, all those students would need to be accommodated by the County.
Student school projection is the MCPS responsibility. If all students attended school where they live, the numbers would all be different. However, there are so many exceptions and the special programs can’t be in each school so it causes some of the students to attend schools out of their home district.
One real problem with the City’s APFO and the overcrowding of schools is the lack of cooperation and dialogue between the City of Rockville and the Montgomery County Public System when the ordinance was proposed. A former Rockville Mayor pushed an APFO without working well with the MCPS.
The City’s APFO is flawed and the court used the ordinance for its narrow judgment in the Beall Grant II development case. Montgomery County is at fault for not seeing that APFO ordinances between Rockville and the County are not more compatible. There is a lack of oversight all around and it all disappoints me.
As a newcomer, I want to say a few things:
First, it sure seems to me IF there is an APFO ordinance used to squash an affordable housing project at the same time that these other projects are approved without having the same standards apply, that is an abhorrent double-standard. What about the homes at Chestnut Lodge? Were these also approved regardless of their impact on the Bealls ES? Or were these approved befor the APFO? When did the APFO pass? Did the other projects pass before the APFO existed? Because it seems that would likely explain it.
Economic segregation is made up? Wow, who knew. I would urge the gentleman who suggested that to simply google the term ( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=economic+segregation ) and see exactly how embedded this concept is within academia, and how studied it is. The notion that it is “more expensive to live in a nice area” doesn’t make obvious the fact that those who can’t afford that area are going to be economically segregated from more affluent people seems amazing to me.
Lastly, if Beall ES is already overcrowded, what is the MCPS plans for expanding the school or otherwise accommodating these children?
Theresa, you said in comment #9:
“The indisputable fact is that those who have opposed BGII, particularly the litigants, have never been concerned with the children estimated to come from any development other than BGII. And they have done nothing positive, like work with MCPS, to find solutions to the over-crowding. Why aren’t they active in the Parent’s Coalition or PTA, including working together with College Garden parents? I find this curious, distressing, but most of all, hypocritical.”
Theresa, do facts not mean anything to you? I was one of those litigants. My 8 year-old daughter attends third grade at Beall ES. My 5 year-old son attends kindergarten at Beall ES. My wife has been very active with the Beall ES PTA and is presently in her second year as president. She puts in a lot of time and effort on behalf of the students and teachers at the school. We are very troubled by the severe over-crowding at Beall ES.
Perhaps you should take a moment to consider what it means when a school is operating at 130% of capacity, as Beall ES is today. It’s sad to see how my 8 year-old daughter will spend this entire school year in a portable, in a third-grade class with a total of 29 students. It breaks my heart to know that my 5 year-old son only has a total of 30 minutes for lunch each day (including the time needed to get to and from the cafeteria and to wait in line for food) because there isn’t enough capacity in the cafeteria to do anything other than rush all the children though in six shifts, like it’s a factory. Every day, my son comes home hungry because he didn’t have enough time to eat his lunch.
Face facts, Theresa: School over-crowding is a serious problem at Beall ES as well as other schools in Rockville and it negatively affects everyone associated with these schools — students, their families, teachers, support staff, administrators, etc. Theresa, you may not care. But many others do. For those of us who do care, the prospect of allowing more residential development to occur — regardless of whether it will be “affordable” or not — knowing full well that the result will be even more children piling into already severely over-crowded schools is unbearable.
“Fact:” class sizes in non-overcrowded schools have also grown proportionally.
This is because the size of the classes is a function of the number of teachers hired by the school system, not the amount of space available. MCPS has no more money for teachers. If it did, it would hire them, and decrease class sizes, taking over available buildings or putting up portables as needed.
So, while school overcrowding leads to some potentially undesirable results: larger class size is not one of them.
Larry, my quote was:
“The indisputable fact is that those who have opposed BGII, particularly the litigants, have never been concerned with the children estimated to come from any development other than BGII.
You did not dispute that. You may choose to answer for yourself, but my comment wasn’t directed to any single person. Please tell me what other developments you have been concerned with beyond BGII. Also, my point was that single family homes also produce children, and no one is stopping or opposing them.
Also, if you don’t mind, since you are addressing me directly, you could answer my question as to what positive steps you have taken to reduce the overcrowding. As you know, many of the other litigants do not have children at Beall.
I care about overcrowding as much as the next person. My kids went to Beall. But it is absolutely true that the school issue became central only because every other fear-mongering tatic-traffic, crime, etc.-were baseless and people caught on.
Larry Giammo states: It breaks my heart to know that my 5 year-old son only has a total of 30 minutes for lunch each day (including the time needed to get to and from the cafeteria and to wait in line for food) because there isn’t enough capacity in the cafeteria to do anything other than rush all the children though in six shifts, like it’s a factory. Every day, my son comes home hungry because he didn’t have enough time to eat his lunch.
Where in the county does an elementary school have longer than 30 minutes for lunch? Most kids, especially those in kindergarten, come home hungry because they chose not to eat their lunch. I have worked in an elementary school cafeteria for years and see it every year. Those are not legitimate overcrowing complaints!!
Overcrowding is a county-wide problem but isn’t the cause of 30-minute lunches. Disingenuous point at best. Yes, portables (sorry, “learning cottages” or whatever new moniker MCPS has for them nowadays) are not the ideal environment for delivery of instruction, but the single-family homes going up at Thousand Oaks and behind Chestnut Lodge DO bring in students, and as family homes I’d wager more likely to do so than Beall’s Grant II would have. They also pay considerably more in property taxes than would apartment-dwellers.
College Gardens was overcrowded from the moment it opened, just about. Were there REALLY no reliable projections about future enrollments? I’m not talking about 10 years down the road, I’m talking about the next year or two after reopening. Were the same formulas aplied to Bealls Grant II and Beall Elementary?
I hesitate to bring this up because the Chinese program is highly sought-after and IMO a desirable program (I have a child in another language immersion program at another MCPS school,) but if College Gardens school is overcrowded, WHY is MCPS bringing in MORE students to that school?
More food for thought….
Mary McMahon is so correct to point out that Larry’s complaint about lunch break time is not a legitimate complaint for the elementary school overcrowding. There are many more valid issues to analyze. The kids who are hungry are not the ones you hear about. They certainly don’t want to be used for any political statement.
When discussing all the real school capacity issues, the overreaction needs to be put aside. No one can predict the future and every year is a new year with new challenges. I have always stated that the economy drives many of our successes and failures. Budgets affect most of our decisions, but good management can bring good solutions. I hope our City and County officials review all the facts and not overreact when making decision on how the school capacity is solved.
let us all please remember: beall’s grant ii has yet to be built. so it cannot be blamed for the overcrowding that has existed for years.
It’s rather odd how I can be asked by anyone “What steps have you taken to reduce school over-crowding?” On November 1, 2005, I voted to adopt the City of Rockville’s Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) which limits potential new development when schools, roads, police and fire/rescue services, or water and sewer services are already significantly over-burdened. The law applies throughout Rockville. The law has worked as intended and continues to protect Rockville residents from the negative impacts of over-development.
From a public policy perspective, the issue to me in this instance comes down to finding an appropriate balance between potentially competing priorities. I believe that creating more affordable housing and keeping schools from becoming severely over-crowded are both important priorities. However, I do not see how anyone is well-served by creating more affordable housing if the schools that will serve that affordable housing are already severely over-crowded. Everyone suffers, including the children who would be among the residents in the newly built affordable housing.
Clearly, other people — Piotr and Theresa among them — take a different view and believe the goal to create more affordable housing always trumps concerns about school-overcrowding. It would be nice if people who take this view — which they’re entitled to — would simply be straight-up and say they believe the goal to create more affordable housing always trumps concerns about school-overcrowding. This would help keep the dialogue civil and productive. There’s no need to distort facts in an attempt to argue that school-overcrowding isn’t actually happening or doesn’t negatively impact anyone. And, there’s certainly no need to attempt to demonize people who are legitimately concerned about school-overcrowding.
I think that someone who’s been associated with those who’ve distributed vicious anonymous flyers calling the residents of Beall’s Grant “transient” and “low-income”, and making statements that those residents have criminal personal tendencies, has no business whatsoever accusing anyone else of “demonizing” anyone, or of distorting facts.
I still have a PDF copy of one of those flyers, for anyone who’d like to see what “civil and productive dialogue” looks like.
One can take any issue and slant the opinion to ones own personal value. The difficulty is coming to a compromise to solve a problem especially when people have different views.
Lack of affordable housing and overcrowding are problems here in Rockville. The APFO is a means of controlling what can be developed in Rockville. It is my view that the Rockville APFO is stretched too far. “To protect Rockville residents from the negative impacts of over-development” has been over exaggerated.
The Rockville tax payers are not paying to build affordable housing. Why restrict non-profit organizations from building them? Especially after the community was engaged in the project and the units were reduced. I don’t understand the resistance to compromise. Why not allow approval of the Beall Grant II project? Isn’t the project a big improvement for what is there now?
How is it that communities with less land and many more people can manage a harmonious community?
Affordable housing benefits more people than a few extra children who would go to the elementary school. School age children grow up and leave the school system, and the need for housing remains. The Montgomery County Public School needs to find ways to deal with the overcrowding of schools. Other jurisdictions find ways to solve the problem. Why can’t the people in Rockville accept solutions that are the responsibility of MCPS? I hope there is good compromise in solving the Beall Grant II project. There is no health issue in allowing that project to be approved.
Larry said: Clearly, other people — Piotr and Theresa among them — take a different view and believe the goal to create more affordable housing always trumps concerns about school-overcrowding. It would be nice if people who take this view — which they’re entitled to — would simply be straight-up and say they believe the goal to create more affordable housing always trumps concerns about school-overcrowding. This would help keep the dialogue civil and productive. There’s no need to distort facts in an attempt to argue that school-overcrowding isn’t actually happening or doesn’t negatively impact anyone. And, there’s certainly no need to attempt to demonize people who are legitimately concerned about school-overcrowding.”
This is a false portrayal of my position. I have never said any such thing.
The issue of school overcrowding, as I have stated, only came to the fore with the ruling.
It still could be that if the city redoes the calculation based on whatever way the court envisioned it should the number of projected children would still be the same.
You’ve been trying to stop a building for 2 years that has not added a single child to Beall Elementary, so it makes sense to ask you, short of your campaign against this building, what efforts you have made to relieve school overcrowding.
I have been very active with the school board on a number of issues. I dare say if you worked with MCSP instead of focusing on Beall’s Grant the overcrowding could be addressed by the folks who have the power to fix it.
I meant, of course, to say MCPS. And I have always been civil and factual, and will remain so.
New but related question: om West Montgomery Avenue near 270 are two homes for sale with a sign that says, “5 Building Lots.” If Beall Elementary (and since this is West End I assume that’s where any elementary-aged children living here would go to school) is already overcrowded and the APFO can be used to stop one housing project, and if more homes are yet to be built and sold and moved into at Chestnut Lodge, how are 5 more NEW building lots approved? Are 5 single-family homes in addition to what’s yet to be built in Chestnut Lodge going to really bring in significantly fewer than the 8 students protected from BGII at Beall? If so, what calculations were used to arrive at that conclusion?
Deb,
I posed your question to Jim Wasilak, Rockville’s Chief of Planning. Here is his response:
“The properties of concern are 545, 611 and 613 West Montgomery Avenue. These three properties consist of five existing record lots in the West End Park subdivision. Over the years two of the lots were split by deed to increase the size of the properties that were built on.
“In terms of the APFO, the record lots have existed since the 1890s when the West End Park plat was recorded. The 5 lots are buildable as they exist, so no additional planning approvals are required and the APFO requirements do not have to be met, with the exception of a sewer and water adequacy check at the time of building permit issuance.
“We don’t have surveys of the properties but it looks as if the houses at 611 and 613 would have to be demolished to take advantage of the existing lots, as those structures cross the record lot lines.”
I guess a fair question to ask is why did the drafters of our APFO draft it in a way that allows this development to go forward while stopping a project like Beall’s Grant II in its tracks? If five detached four-bedroom homes are built, they will most certainly generate 10-15 kids for the RMHS school cluster – well more than Beall’s Grant II would have.
It will also be interesting to observe if opponents of Beall’s Grant II (who claimed to oppose it because the few children that could have lived there would have contributed to the overcrowding of schools) will now use every possible legal maneuver to try to stop the building of these homes.
The question asked by Councilman Piotr Gajewski is appropriate.
In my opinion the Rockville APFO was passed as a mechanism to stop development. Rockville has the authority to make land use laws, but they seem to ignore the affect of development that is happening outside the surrounding jurisdiction. Both city and county development ordinances are important and need to be compatible.
Thanks, Piotr, that answer does at least make sense in terms of the planning decision. I think I need to have a read of the full text and full history of the APFO in my not-so-copious free time for a fuller context and understanding. *grin*
Good questions…because the Rockville City blog recently linked to the actual APFO ordinance, I actually read the thing. It should also be pointed out that any new “development” that adds three or more housing units is exempted!! No exemption for affordable units though…..and there’s quite a list of other factors that can exempt a “development” most of which make sense…..but reading the actual APFO led me to question further some of the statements I heard folks make at the Oct. 4th meeting….
So, any lot that can be subdivided into three lots could be exempt from the APFO….look out for your school enrollment!
Coming back to this one after a while….. if the APFO says (and please correct me if I’ve got it wrong) that no new housing can be approved if the school is 110% of capacity, how close to that is Beall?
And how in the world can entire developments possibly be exempted when the whole point is to prevent things like overtaxing the utilities and overcrowding the schools? How do developments not do that, please? How did King Farm get approved and built for thousands upon thousands of people and no additional schools for their kids to go to school in? How did the APFO get passed this way in the first place? This sounds like a loophole that’s a developer’s dream come true. Oh, wait…. I think I just answered my own question, perhaps?
Deb, have you see the full text amendment? Here it is. King Farm would not qualify as the specifications are narrowly defined. There was also talk of revising this further to say the owner of the units had to be a non-profit. Because of the virulent opposition refused to allow even a discussion of wording, no changes were made-it was shot down before even a debate on the merits.
Section 25.03.02 — Words and Terms Defined
Affordable Housing Development:
A Multiple-Unit Dwelling, independently or as part of a mixed-use development, where at least 80% of the total number of dwelling units are sold or rented to households with incomes at or below 60% of the area median income.
2. Amend the APFO Applicability (Section 25.20.02), to add new subsection f., as follows:
Section 25.20.02 — Applicability
a. * * *
b. * * *
c. * * *
d. * * *
e. * * *
f. In order to foster the City’s policies in support of affordable housing, the portions of the APFO and APFS that are applicable to schools and school capacity will not apply to Affordable Housing Developments, as defined in this Chapter.
Thanks, Theresa, I’ve only had the opportunity to skim, and a slow computer means I only get so much screen time (for the best, I suppose. LOL).
I was actually wondering if the school is above capacity, then how, other utilities notwithstanding, are 5 new building lots being approved in Beall’s catchment area? (The homes on West End near 270 with the signs that proclaim “5 Building Lots”) Is it being considered “one 5-lot development?” Are the lots being sold separately?
Sorry to keep worrying this like a dog on a bone, but having been the music teacher without a classroom in too many overcrowded elementary schools (try that as a band/orchestra teacher!), this bugs the heck out of me. Rockville at least HAS the AFPO where the rest of the County doesn’t, but it’s not going to do anyone any good if knock-down rebuilds, subdivisions, and outright developments get exempted from the AFPO and more people come to the schools regardless. (A lot in my neighborhood was subdivided, a HUGE monstrosity was built on the tiny half-lot, it went up for sale - unsuccessfully - a couple months later, and is now occupied by several families, according to neighbors there.) The only thing the APFO is good for in that case is to stop Beall’s Grant II (so far).
*wishes for a clone to do this research while I take my class and do my jobs* LOL