Sarah-There’s some truth to that, but some people might want a school in their neighborhood. Unfortunately, MCPS reconfigured or sold sites instead of holding them for future use. In Rock Creek Park, for example, they transferred over 1/3 of the (flat) land, and a separate access road, to HOC after KJH closed, leaving the park with a 70’ drop in topology.

The remaining park was developed with LWCF and/or POS funds, and by law, it can’t be converted from park use without replacing it in the community with land of equal monetary and recreational value. As the Park person said, the replacement value of the land exceeds the park’s appraised value. So, even if MCPS wanted to request the initiation of statutory conversion procedures, they’re stuck.

Also, their park’s feasibility study says MCPS needs to remove and replace 5.1 acres of forestation. As the Planning gentleman said, they need Planning approval to do that. Based on the lot size and the stated minimum requirement of 10.1 flat acres (not including other buffers, sidewalks, etc.), if they don’t get approval, it appears that the available site will be about 8 acres, and thus, they can’t build on it.

In sum, these aren’t neighborhood opposition problems; they’re availability problems based on law and policy. Maybe the lesson is that Park and Planning, and not MCPS, should be handling these issues.-Tom

Jess-See what I mean? This is a bogus site sample in a bogus process. MCPS included sites that simply cannot sustain a middle school based on site size and usage, based on the law, or based on the potential for inordinate disruption to the community. Have you seen the streets around Bethesda Lynbrook? I’ve had roll sushi wider than those streets! It’s ridiculous.

MCPS has demonstrated that it can’t plan flatulence in a bean factory. It needs to be removed from the process, and community planning issues should be managed by the professionals in Park and Planning, but that’s a fight for another day. In the meantime, the only way this sham is going to be repulsed is for all the communities not protected in this process (which is a story for another day) to work together and fight these people politically.-Tom

Jess, you're right — the site MCPS is considering includes both the former Lynnbrook Elementary and what is currently Lynnbrook Local Park. I'll correct the story.

Also, you can find the schools' PowerPoint presentation on the sites here: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/REM/pdf/BCC%20MS%20Site%20Presentation%20for%20SSAC%20011212%20Public%20Sites.pdf

Jess-I’m amazed. My kids went to daycare there, and I can’t imagine how buses make it with cars parked on the street. Be that as it may, according to the new criteria announced at the meeting, the minimum acreage required for the MS is 10.1 acres (on slide 10 of the presentation), but that “Assumes flat usable acres, with no trees, no stream buffers and no building setbacks. Space between items is site and shape dependent, and is not included in acreage listed.” Even then, the fields will be overlaid, not separate. I’m no planner, but at slightly more than 10 acres, it strikes me that, at best, the site is on the edge of acceptability, and that’s not accounting for the point you raised earlier.-Tom

It would be, but they say there's a multi-acre environmental zone that prohibits its use, raising the question again: Then why is it in the site sample?

Yes, they still have daycare, and the children are dropped off by parents in the early morning, and then driven in big yellow MCPS buses to 4 area elementary schools in the morning, and then they are bussed back to the daycare in those same school buses to be picked up by their parents in the afternoon. Day care has been provided at Lynnbrook since 1975, even before the school closed.