Some method of calculating school capacity will likely be added to the county’s new Annual Growth Policy (AGP), if the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee has its way.
“I think we have got to have a schools test,” said Committee Chair Steve Silverman (D-At Large). “We have got to have a failsafe mechanism.”
One method of calculating whether schools are full could result in halting development in Potomac. The committee did not make any official recommendations, pending current enrollment data which will not be available until after the school’s official calculations on Sept. 30.
The committee asked for updated data for two approaches to measuring school capacity, one which would allow schools to have up to 100 percent of capacity as measured by current growth policy standards (see sidebar), and the other that would allow up to 105 percent of the same measure.
The 100 percent option would place the Churchill cluster, along with eight others, in building moratorium, using last year’s enrollment data.
Both of these tests would end the practice of “borrowing” capacity from adjacent clusters (see sidebar) at the Elementary and Middle school levels.
Borrowing is the practice of allowing new development even if the local schools are full if there is room in an adjacent cluster of schools.
The theory behind this is that the school system could re-draw the boundary lines to make room for new students.
Borrowing would be allowed to continue at the high school level.
The 105 percent option is the one which most interested the committee. Using last year’s data, no new construction would be approved for Damascus, Walter Johnson, Kennedy and Northwest under this option.
This system allows for some flexibility in constructing improvements. At 100 percent, it could happen that a cluster would go into moratorium when they are just a few students over their capacity. “[That is] not enough of an overage to justify building a new addition,” said Derick Berlage, chairman of the Park and Planning Commission.
Allowing the schools in a cluster to go to 105 percent would allow enough students to create a reasonable demand for school new construction.
TRANSPORTATION: The Committee also heard answers to the questions it had asked last time about many of the issues raised regarding traffic tests.
Council Staff had recommended tightening the Local Area Transit Review (LATR). This would force developers to meet stricter standards when implementing traffic mitigation for new projects.
However, the new standards proposed would only result in forcing traffic mitigation in about 12 intersections in the entire county.
Silverman questioned implementing a new policy if it would have such a minimal impact, but the committee did not make an official decision on the proposal.