County to take Chevy Chase Country Club for new middle school!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The posters on this thread are truly the most uninformed people I have ever seen post.

Agree. I think that some of them skipped tenth grade when government class was taught.

[Anonymous]

sad to say it, but the concept of eminent domain has been expanded in recent years to allow things that you can't possibly think are reasonable. it is not outrageous, after some of these rulings to imagine a gov't action that says a school is more of a "greater good" than is a country club and seize the land under that rationale.
in a well publicized case, a home was seized in order for a town to allow private developers to build commercial buildings (stores, etc.) in order to get the tax revenue from those new businesses. many thought it was an overreaching of eminent domain - but it was upheld.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sad to say it, but the concept of eminent domain has been expanded in recent years to allow things that you can't possibly think are reasonable. it is not outrageous, after some of these rulings to imagine a gov't action that says a school is more of a "greater good" than is a country club and seize the land under that rationale.
in a well publicized case, a home was seized in order for a town to allow private developers to build commercial buildings (stores, etc.) in order to get the tax revenue from those new businesses. many thought it was an overreaching of eminent domain - but it was upheld.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

Here is the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:... Kensington Junior High School sat on that land for over fifty years before it was torn down. The county retained ownership of the land. Now they want to build another school there which is their right.

Please note that what MCPS has proposed would not be putting a new school where an old school once was, because that's not possible. After Kensington Junior High (KJH) was closed, our county allocated about one-third of the former site (including a separate north-south access road) to construction of housing for the elderly. Please see aerial photos:



The Kensington Park Retirement Community stands on approximately one-third of the former KJH site, including its Northern access road. After KJH was closed, the site was broken up, with about the northern third deeded to our county's Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC), which financed with tax exempt bonds the building of a facility providing independent living, assisted living, and Alzheimer's and Dementia care to over 200 senior citizens.

With the small park, the former single-use school site became a dual-use site, serving the needs of three constituencies: the elderly, park users, and the community. As it currently exists, Rock Creek Hills Park fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the 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. The county Parks Director told Kensington Patch that the proposed construction 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."