Reply to Baltimore Sun article about Howard County rezoning

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[quote=Anonymous]Well, I won't argue that it is not personally disappointing and troublesome to have a potential drop in home equity. Changes to school assignment or commute also matter. Believe me, I pinched my pennies to buy my house too and anyone who endures a long commute, esp. in a dual income family, knows how much logistics can make or break a day.

Nonetheless, I'm a little impatient with those who dig their heels against redistricting. Speaking of HoCo - I can't comment intelligently on MoCo, as I don't know the geography well enough:

1. In Hoco, the existing school assignments are already not built to send all children to the closest school or into the shortest commute path. There are a lot of schools, esp. at the high school level, that are spaced in such a way that this would be close to impossible to achieve. Also, by intention or accident, HoCo students seem already to be assigned to school based partly on maintaining a certain school profile and / or keeping certain neighborhood "profiles" intact. So the status quo is already a gerrymandered map. This is particular obvious in southern HoCo.  Perhaps it is just the soft pressure of communities to accept "busing" when it improves the profiles of certain high schools, but to yell loudly when it does not. In any case, we're already structuring things with an objective. It shouldn't be out of bounds to re-calibrate based on what is good for county and students in general.

2. I have no doubt that there are some proposed reassignments that don't make enough sense logistically and should be revisited. The plan should be questioned and tweaked. However, I also think it may be human nature to under-estimate or accept a slightly longer commute when the shift is perceived to be positive, and to over-estimate the commute time and impact when the shift is not perceived as being to a "better" school. So, I accept this is a factor that matters but I also strongly suspect it's a front to some degree. See also: people who moved to developments well off commute paths, all but guaranteeing a half hour or more commute, who are suddenly finding commute time to be desperately important to them.

3.  There's a strong refrain not to "break up communities," but people are making the *choice* to view their community has having certain demographic or geographical boundaries. If we change the school assignments, then community can shift with the boundary change. And lot of the lines of "community" put divisions between communities that live in very close proximity.

4. In HoCo, part of the issue is development patterns. It is partly fast development is happening. It is also, and perhaps much more, a function of the fact that affordable and middle class housing is built in some areas and not others. A solution to this would be to plan and require a mixture of housing across the county, so that moving students around would only need to be done for over-crowding, not for equity. It would be wonderful for the County to pursue this goal, but if it refuses then what is the School Board supposed to do? It has to deal with what it is served.

5. If you are strong opponent of redistricting, then you have to do something about #4. If you refuse, particularly if you will not encourage or allow for diversity within your local area, then guess what - the schools are going to need to drive students further than you may prefer to create communities that reflect the composition of the county to prevent the gradual and destructive siloing of communities. I'd be in in the "no redistricting camp" if I thought there was going to be significant action on 4. But what isn't going to work is to oppose redistricting because "it's a development issue, not a school issue, don't 'break up' community, etc, etc" when you are in reality not going to advocate for and will in fact oppose the changes to development requirements and zoning / lot size / water requirements that would create a more balanced community close to where you live.

6. Lots of people save to buy their homes, not only relatively rich people. Just because you over-valued your house based on the misperception the school zone would not change does not bind the county to protecting you from yourself. It should make decisions based on the big picture for home owners all over the map. This constant buzz about certain schools being "better" than others and about certain communities being exclusive and others being "bad" devalues the property of lots of middle class families who own in older or more diverse areas. And allowing the schools to become increasingly pigeonholded by income also decreases some people's property values across time. So why is it important to protect 50k of equity in a 800k or 1 million home built 5 years ago, but it's not important to protect the equity in a 400k house a police officer bought 20 years ago? Again, big picture matters - we're all better off if everyone is zoned to a school with a mix of profiles, and we're all better if people aren't over-speculating in one area, and being *wink winked* out of buying into other areas.

7. It's 2019. This stuff is hard and we don't all agree on the solutions, but HoCo and MoCo should have enough good and smart people in them that we can find solutions with development and school policy. Let's do it!

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