County may apply development restrictions within municipalities
Frederick News-Post
Should municipalities be required to limit development when there isn't enough school capacity for expected new students?
It's a question the Frederick County Commissioners will discuss Monday, following a lengthy public hearing this week with several municipal officials who objected to the county's interference.
Earlier this year, Commissioner John L. Thompson Jr. proposed that the county make its Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance applicable everywhere, including within municipalities.
That ordinance is designed to limit growth in areas where there isn't enough school capacity to handle the new students.
For the measure to pass countywide, commissioners will have to find a supermajority of four votes of its five members.
At Tuesday night's hearing, it appeared the board could have the votes.
Commissioner Charles Jenkins said he would vote against it, but commissioners David Gray, Jan Gardner, Kai Hagen and John L. Thompson Jr. said they support the concept.
Commissioners are responsible for public education funding and should make sure schools aren't overcrowded, Gardner said.
"I don't think this is an issue of control, I think this is just an issue of responsibility," Gardner said.
At Tuesday's hearing, the county officials heard from about 25 speakers, including several municipal leaders, a handful of developers and about 10 parents.
Municipal leaders testified against the concept, but Gardner said the county did get a letter of support from Myersville . Parents from around the county have also supported it, Gardner said.
On Monday, commissioners will discuss how to apply the ordinance and if it should include development with some level of approval.
They will also discuss an option for the ordinance to apply only to properties annexed since their discussions on the issue began in June. That would include the Crumland and Thatcher annexations in northern Frederick .
But Jenkins and municipal officials objected, saying schools with the most overcrowding -- Urbana and Linganore -- are in unincorporated parts of the county with no municipalities feeding them.
"When I look at the five most egregious schools being county schools, not being fed by municipalities, I think we sit here with a little bit of egg on our face," Jenkins said.
Walkersville is the only seriously overcrowded school that feeds from a municipality, he said. Development in the City of Frederick does play into the school's numbers.
Jenkins argued commissioners should instead ask the newly elected Frederick mayor and aldermen to beef up the city's own APFO.
Other commissioners were more inclined to make the policy equal across the county.
They said school overcrowding at Urbana and Linganore is because of a weaker APFO more than a decade ago.
Hagen said some of the county's older schools have been neglected and are falling apart because the county has invested instead in new buildings to meet a growing school population.
"We have existing communities, the people who were here first, not creating a problem that is directly affecting the quality and welfare of their children's education," he said. "This is a countywide school system, we are one county."
