2. Isn't there a hurry to finalize the site choice so that a school can be built?
3. Didn't a feasibility study show that a school would fit in the park?
4. Isn't parkland free?
5. There aren't any other sites anyway, right?
[Click on a question to go to the answer.]
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| The former Kensington Junior High, and the Kensington Park Retirement Community. |
No. After Kensington Junior High was closed, our county allocated over one-third of the former site (including a separate north-south access road) to construction of housing for the elderly. With the small park, the former single-use school site became a dual-use site. As it currently exists, Rock Creek Hills Park fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) middle school site standards. MCPS has proposed building on the steep slope of the small site, destroying forest stands of specimen trees. This construction plan runs counter to concerns expressed by the planning board and the Montgomery County Council after the closing of the old school.
2. Isn't there a hurry to finalize the site choice so that a school can be built?
Some people say there is a hurry, but it's not clear why. According to the capital budget approved by our County Council, the first spending would be on the design phase in the 2013-2014 fiscal year, which is more than a year from now.
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| "Overlaid" fields would limit athletics. (When is a soccer field not a soccer field? Whenever someone's playing softball. When is a tennis court not a tennis court? Whenever someone's running track. And when is a basketball court not a basketball court? When "portable classrooms" are parked on it.) |
•There would be no park left. The county parks director told Kensington Patch that a school would "obliterate" the park, and an MCPS official appeared to agree that because of substantial regrading (the playing field would be dropped by four feet) "there's not going to be any trees left."
• A middle school on the site of the park would be, of all the middle schools in the county, the one on the smallest site without an adjacent park to provide additional acreage and playing fields for school use.
•The feasibility study proposed a middle school that does not meet MCPS specifications for on-site parking, and that does not provide provide adequate playing fields. The current soccer fields would be replaced with "overlaid" fields that would limit athletics. "Portable classrooms" (trailers) would be placed on the new basketball courts. To accommodate 1200 students would require expansion, which would increase costs and limit sports programs even more.
• An Independent Construction Budget Estimate (ICBE) 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.
4. Isn't parkland free?
No.
• The parks department estimates that they would have to be paid approximately $6 million in reimbursement for debt service and improvements to Rock Creek Hills Park.
• The social costs of losing the park would be considerable, given for example that the park's two regulation soccer fields see 1,200 annual hours of use under permits (the only park use for which there are records). The Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School girls' soccer team (four-time state champions!) would lose their practice fields.
• Funds under Maryland's Program Open Space (POS) were used to develop the park. Under the POS statute, land acquired or developed with POS funds may not be converted to non-park use outside of a strict regulatory process, which requires replacement of the land with land of equal economic and recreational value in the community. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) asserts that it has the discretion to cap enforcement of these restrictions at 20 years for land developed (vs. acquired) with such funds. Given the explicit statutory language barring the conversion of land "acquired or developed" with POS funds, if Rock Creek Hills Park is selected as the site for the middle school, then the likelihood of litigation to challenge DNR's position increases substantially.
5. There aren't any other sites anyway, right?
Wrong.
• The minority report filed by Brooke Farquhar, supervisor of park and trail planning with the county parks department, dissenting from the recommendations of the Site Selection Advisory Committee (SSAC), and states that "...one solution with less impact on public use of permitted park athletic fields ... would be to utilize the old Lynnbrook school site [owned by MCPS] in conjunction with Lynnbrook Local Park." Moreover, this location conforms with SSAC criteria better than Rock Creek Hills Park.
• The dissenting SSAC minority report filed by Frederick V. Boyd, community planner with the county planning board, states that two publicly held sites, as well as several privately held sites, were eliminated because of time pressure.
• The dissenting SSAC minority report filed by the B-CC High School NAACP Parents' Council states that "... two options offer far superior alternatives to protect and enhance diversity: 1) collocating a second, adjacent building or building an addition onto Westland Middle School; or 2) placing the school in a central [B-CC cluster] location, like the alternate recommended site, North Chevy Chase Park."
[This FAQ first appeared on patch.com in March 2012.]
