Reply to Will the Westbard redevelopment blow up the Whitman cluster?

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Reply to "Will the Westbard redevelopment blow up the Whitman cluster?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I'm under no illusion that these developments aren't going forward, but we residents can't hold these developers hostage when MCPS sits on its hands.  If MCPS isn't engaged, there isn't anyone at the table saying, "No, you can't add 100-200 more students to this community given the schools we have in the area unless we have (1) a new school, or (2) build additions to these X schools, so you (developer) need to factor $X into your budget to help defray the cost to the community your development will create.  But no, MCPS sends Bruce Crispell to these meetings to tell residents that MCPS won't do anything until the developers are done, which means 100% of the costs are borne by the taxpayers.  The developer gets its project and the profits, and isn't making the investment it should into the infrastructure that's supposed to support the development because MCPS doesn't challenge anything the developer says.  After the developers are gone, we residents have to deal with the overcrowding at the schools and also have to pay to support additions -- which of course won't be built anywhere near us because school construction funds are tight state-wide and no one thinks Bethesda needs anything.[/quote]

This is inaccurate.

[b]1. What MCPS doesn't do is take future enrollment into account in its enrollment projections until the development is approved. And I think that's the right decision.[/b]

2. The developers pay impact taxes, and the money is supposed to go towards transportation and school infrastructure. If you think that the developers should pay more towards transportation and school infrastructure, then you should ask the County Council to raise the impact taxes.[/quote]

No one is saying MCPS should be doing Enron-style accounting of students, but this is different from being part of these development discussions and saying to developers, "if you add 800 units to this community, our projections would show, based on comparable past experience, that this would add X students, and this cannot be accomodated unless we have an additional school or redistrict and build X number of additions at X schools.  This would cost X dollars and this should be a factor in the development plans."  As far as I can tell from attending numerous meetings so far, this is not happening.  MCPS is completely passive, to the point that it is activingly telling the developers and planning commission that no new resources are required at all and that no land should be set aside.  That is short sighted.[/quote]

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