Schools and growth in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Also would love to know how much of those impact taxes the county actually collects.
So, in short:
Current isolated data points unhelpful for trend projection, but nice that they are getting amassed
Helpful:
Trends in housing over time.
An annual summary of development built, what kind, amount of impact fees assessed AND comparable chart of fees actually collected and when.
Annual growth chart of MCPS expenses related to increasing population and population shifts through the county due to rising housing costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Meant to say high rises. It is wishful thinking that current data about children in high rises will be true in 10 years. It is like budgeting for a family of four with kids in ES and imagining that budget will still feed them when they are teenagers. The data may be true today, but the projected trend is clearly going to change.

Your statement is based on what? Has there been an increasing trend in the number of MCPS students per high-rise unit?

You make decisions based on the information you currently have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Meant to say high rises. It is wishful thinking that current data about children in high rises will be true in 10 years. It is like budgeting for a family of four with kids in ES and imagining that budget will still feed them when they are teenagers. The data may be true today, but the projected trend is clearly going to change.

Your statement is based on what? Has there been an increasing trend in the number of MCPS students per high-rise unit?

You make decisions based on the information you currently have.

And that, right there, folks, is why your kids are mashed into lines of portable classrooms covering their playground blacktop and eating lunch at 10:40 am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Meant to say high rises. It is wishful thinking that current data about children in high rises will be true in 10 years. It is like budgeting for a family of four with kids in ES and imagining that budget will still feed them when they are teenagers. The data may be true today, but the projected trend is clearly going to change.

Your statement is based on what? Has there been an increasing trend in the number of MCPS students per high-rise unit?

You make decisions based on the information you currently have.

And that, right there, folks, is why your kids are mashed into lines of portable classrooms covering their playground blacktop and eating lunch at 10:40 am.

How do you make an information-based decision using information you don't have? I'm asking sincerely.

[Anonymous]

You think. You spot trends early (like increasing numbers of millennials staying in TH and appts when they have kids). Assuming the future will be exactly like the present is what got us to these overcrowded schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You think. You spot trends early (like increasing numbers of millennials staying in TH and appts when they have kids). Assuming the future will be exactly like the present is what got us to these overcrowded schools.

Is it a trend? What do the data say?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Meant to say high rises. It is wishful thinking that current data about children in high rises will be true in 10 years. It is like budgeting for a family of four with kids in ES and imagining that budget will still feed them when they are teenagers. The data may be true today, but the projected trend is clearly going to change.

Your statement is based on what? Has there been an increasing trend in the number of MCPS students per high-rise unit?

You make decisions based on the information you currently have.

And that, right there, folks, is why your kids are mashed into lines of portable classrooms covering their playground blacktop and eating lunch at 10:40 am.

How do you make an information-based decision using information you don't have? I'm asking sincerely.

But the information we don’t have is precisely my point. Basing decisions on solitary data points and not projections over time is just terrible planning. Pretending that solitary data points justify current decisions is also terrible planning. This kind of wishful thinking about making decisions on what is happening now and basing infrastructure on current status instead of accurately projected status is exactly why so many schools are overcrowded. Planning Board decided that because SFH were where children used to live, that is where they would always live. 10 years later... Surprise! Some time spent analyzing the changing populations and demographics of the county would have been useful in understanding just how many children would be in townhouses.

Now, I don’t have this data. I’m a SAH mom on DCUM during baby’s nap time. But just because I’m in yoga pants with bad hair doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes in my head. Do developers think we are stupid? I live up near Germantown and Clarksburg. I am super unimpressed with MoCo Planning Board. And this blog feels very suspiciously like laying the groundwork for some wide-eyed innocence “just the facts, Ma’am” about some upcoming terrible planning choices. Schools are crowded. Traffic is insane. Fields are getting plowed under every day. Many people with little kids can’t afford SFH’s anymore and it is OBVIOUS to anyone with some basic imagination that high rises are very likely going to be the new townhomes if our population continues to grow at the same pace. How much? I don’t know. Planning Board should care to know, to find out, to make decently accurate predictions based on reality and the welfare of our county and not just on what developers WISH would be true. And throwing their hands into the air and saying that they can’t possibly figure it out because who can tell the future, let’s just look at what we know NOW is the opposite of what the Planning Board is supposed to be any good at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But the information we don’t have is precisely my point. Basing decisions on solitary data points and not projections over time is just terrible planning. Pretending that solitary data points justify current decisions is also terrible planning. This kind of wishful thinking about making decisions on what is happening now and basing infrastructure on current status instead of accurately projected status is exactly why so many schools are overcrowded. Planning Board decided that because SFH were where children used to live, that is where they would always live. 10 years later... Surprise! Some time spent analyzing the changing populations and demographics of the county would have been useful in understanding just how many children would be in townhouses.

Now, I don’t have this data. I’m a SAH mom on DCUM during baby’s nap time. But just because I’m in yoga pants with bad hair doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes in my head. Do developers think we are stupid? I live up near Germantown and Clarksburg. I am super unimpressed with MoCo Planning Board. And this blog feels very suspiciously like laying the groundwork for some wide-eyed innocence “just the facts, Ma’am” about some upcoming terrible planning choices. Schools are crowded. Traffic is insane. Fields are getting plowed under every day. Many people with little kids can’t afford SFH’s anymore and it is OBVIOUS to anyone with some basic imagination that high rises are very likely going to be the new townhomes if our population continues to grow at the same pace. How much? I don’t know. Planning Board should care to know, to find out, to make decently accurate predictions based on reality and the welfare of our county and not just on what developers WISH would be true. And throwing their hands into the air and saying that they can’t possibly figure it out because who can tell the future, let’s just look at what we know NOW is the opposite of what the Planning Board is supposed to be any good at.

Ask for it, by leaving a comment on the blog. I mean that. Ask how the student generation rates have changed over time. It's a good question.

You might be interested in this recent report, too: https://montgomeryplanning.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/MP_TrendsReport_final.pdf The section on housing starts on p. 45. The county is actually building less housing in the 2010s than in the 2000s and 1990s.

Fields are getting plowed under every day in Clarksburg, based on (bad) decisions the Planning Board and County Council made in 1994. The current Planning Board had nothing to do with that.

[Anonymous]

Also, as far as I know, the Planning Board has NEVER decided that children only live, and will always only live, in single-family detached houses. People keep saying this on DCUM, but they haven't provided any evidence to support it. And actually there's plenty of evidence against it. The county has 50+ years of experience with children who live in townhouses and garden apartments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But the information we don’t have is precisely my point. Basing decisions on solitary data points and not projections over time is just terrible planning. Pretending that solitary data points justify current decisions is also terrible planning. This kind of wishful thinking about making decisions on what is happening now and basing infrastructure on current status instead of accurately projected status is exactly why so many schools are overcrowded. Planning Board decided that because SFH were where children used to live, that is where they would always live. 10 years later... Surprise! Some time spent analyzing the changing populations and demographics of the county would have been useful in understanding just how many children would be in townhouses.

Now, I don’t have this data. I’m a SAH mom on DCUM during baby’s nap time. But just because I’m in yoga pants with bad hair doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes in my head. Do developers think we are stupid? I live up near Germantown and Clarksburg. I am super unimpressed with MoCo Planning Board. And this blog feels very suspiciously like laying the groundwork for some wide-eyed innocence “just the facts, Ma’am” about some upcoming terrible planning choices. Schools are crowded. Traffic is insane. Fields are getting plowed under every day. Many people with little kids can’t afford SFH’s anymore and it is OBVIOUS to anyone with some basic imagination that high rises are very likely going to be the new townhomes if our population continues to grow at the same pace. How much? I don’t know. Planning Board should care to know, to find out, to make decently accurate predictions based on reality and the welfare of our county and not just on what developers WISH would be true. And throwing their hands into the air and saying that they can’t possibly figure it out because who can tell the future, let’s just look at what we know NOW is the opposite of what the Planning Board is supposed to be any good at.

Ask for it, by leaving a comment on the blog. I mean that. Ask how the student generation rates have changed over time. It's a good question.

You might be interested in this recent report, too: https://montgomeryplanning.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/MP_TrendsReport_final.pdf The section on housing starts on p. 45. The county is actually building less housing in the 2010s than in the 2000s and 1990s.

Fields are getting plowed under every day in Clarksburg, based on (bad) decisions the Planning Board and County Council made in 1994. The current Planning Board had nothing to do with that.

Yah, if I seem a bit... hostile, it is because I have lived here all my life and I am well aware of 1990’s Planning Board. Doesn’t mean this one gets to make the same mistakes and act surprised if the same problems emerge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yah, if I seem a bit... hostile, it is because I have lived here all my life and I am well aware of 1990’s Planning Board. Doesn’t mean this one gets to make the same mistakes and act surprised if the same problems emerge.

Clarksburg is a planning mistake they won't make again, if only because they can't (unless they break the Ag Reserve).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Meant to say high rises. It is wishful thinking that current data about children in high rises will be true in 10 years. It is like budgeting for a family of four with kids in ES and imagining that budget will still feed them when they are teenagers. The data may be true today, but the projected trend is clearly going to change.

Your statement is based on what? Has there been an increasing trend in the number of MCPS students per high-rise unit?

You make decisions based on the information you currently have.

And that, right there, folks, is why your kids are mashed into lines of portable classrooms covering their playground blacktop and eating lunch at 10:40 am.

How do you make an information-based decision using information you don't have? I'm asking sincerely.

But the information we don’t have is precisely my point. Basing decisions on solitary data points and not projections over time is just terrible planning. Pretending that solitary data points justify current decisions is also terrible planning. This kind of wishful thinking about making decisions on what is happening now and basing infrastructure on current status instead of accurately projected status is exactly why so many schools are overcrowded. Planning Board decided that because SFH were where children used to live, that is where they would always live. 10 years later... Surprise! Some time spent analyzing the changing populations and demographics of the county would have been useful in understanding just how many children would be in townhouses.

Now, I don’t have this data. I’m a SAH mom on DCUM during baby’s nap time. But just because I’m in yoga pants with bad hair doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes in my head. Do developers think we are stupid? I live up near Germantown and Clarksburg. I am super unimpressed with MoCo Planning Board. And this blog feels very suspiciously like laying the groundwork for some wide-eyed innocence “just the facts, Ma’am” about some upcoming terrible planning choices. Schools are crowded. Traffic is insane. Fields are getting plowed under every day. Many people with little kids can’t afford SFH’s anymore and it is OBVIOUS to anyone with some basic imagination that high rises are very likely going to be the new townhomes if our population continues to grow at the same pace. How much? I don’t know. Planning Board should care to know, to find out, to make decently accurate predictions based on reality and the welfare of our county and not just on what developers WISH would be true. And throwing their hands into the air and saying that they can’t possibly figure it out because who can tell the future, let’s just look at what we know NOW is the opposite of what the Planning Board is supposed to be any good at.

Agree completely.

Stats can be made to appear differently, based on the motivations of the person presenting them.

I KNOW my kids’ schools are overcrowded because I see it every single day. My one kid has lunch at 10:40 and my other kid doesn’t get lunch until 1pm because there is just no other way to get all the classes in. We just had an addition built on our school and it is ALREADY at capacity. Any more housing developments, and we will be over. My kid has indoor recess smashed in with another class full of kids because there is nowhere else for them to go. Two classes of 25 kids smooshed into one ES classroom is pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yah, if I seem a bit... hostile, it is because I have lived here all my life and I am well aware of 1990’s Planning Board. Doesn’t mean this one gets to make the same mistakes and act surprised if the same problems emerge.

Clarksburg is a planning mistake they won't make again, if only because they can't (unless they break the Ag Reserve).

That will come next. Guaranteed.

Developers recognize the potential to make money. And the County leaders will eventually cave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, as far as I know, the Planning Board has NEVER decided that children only live, and will always only live, in single-family detached houses. People keep saying this on DCUM, but they haven't provided any evidence to support it. And actually there's plenty of evidence against it. The county has 50+ years of experience with children who live in townhouses and garden apartments.

The high rises have been a relatively new addition.

The obsession with high density housing has really taken off over the past decade. Huge push for urbanization in a County that is meant to be a suburb of DC.

[Anonymous]

The only thing they should be building in moco is more schools.