MCPS Drops Plan to Build Schools on Parkland [Not MCPS' Land to Use!]

The Board of Education wants to Divest Lyttonsville of Their Open Space Land, Again. #AntiaircraftArtilleryBattalion

MCPS already designed a school for the Coffield Rec site.

Once again, the Board of Education has put the parkland next to the Coffield Recreation Center in Lyttonsville on a list of potential school sites.  

Back in April of 2011, the Board of Education was told by the Montgomery County Department of Parks that park land is not up for grabs for the placement of school buildings.  See the April 27, 2011, letter from Montgomery Parks to the Board of Education below. 

In 2011, the Board of Education was specifically told they could not have the land next to the Coffield Recreation Center for a public school, yet here that park is again on a list of potential school sites and the Board of Education has even gone so far as to pay for a possible building design for the proposed school.  See image from MCPS presentation. 

Not only is the Park land next to the Coffield Recreation Center the property of Montgomery Parks, but the land that became part of the fields at Rosemary Hills Local Park was probably the site for an Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion in the first half of the 1950s, as part of a group of such sites that ringed the Washington, DC region before the advent of Nike missile sites after the Korean War.

Because the land was purchased by Parks and Planning before there were federal and state environmental laws that mandated due diligence into toxic materials and other past land uses that could pose a threat to water quality or health and safety, the screening process to assess threats was very superficial, limited, for example, to noting whether a dump or other substandard structures were on site.

This site would need to be investigated thoroughly before any construction could commence and as the long time residents of Lyttonsville know, this past use of this land has prevented other construction projects from taking place on the existing fields. 

BOE Site Selection by Parents' Coalition of Montg... on Scribd

MoCo Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson and Westbard developer EYA shake hands minutes after plan passes

https://robertdyer.blogspot.com/2016/05/westbard-sector-plan-may-be-pyrrhic.html

Elrich, "Eliminating 1,000 jobs and thinking that is a bright idea."

Westbard, Rosemary Hills, Lyttonsville, Damascus & Luxmanor Unite to Send Message to Council

Here's what the opposition to the Westbard Sector Plan is saying before today's expected approval: pic.twitter.com/MatZrCD1S9

— Bethesda Beat (@BethesdaBeat) May 3, 2016

This morning four County neighborhood groups joined SaveWestbard and submitted a joint letter to the County Council.
May 3, 2016
Montgomery County Council
Council Office Building
100 Maryland Avenue, 5th Floor
Rockville, MD 20850
Dear Councilmembers:
This letter is a joint effort among the following groups:
SaveWestbard
Rosemary Hills
Lyttonsville
Keep Damascus Rural
Luxmanor Citizens Association
We ask the County Council, once again, to reject the proposed Westbard Sector Plan (WSP) or, at a minimum, take a strategic pause before approving this sector plan in order to allow for a thoughtful and measured process in which community trust of county government is restored and community concerns (about school-overcrowding and traffic congestion) are appropriately and meaningfully addressed. Consultation with the community is imperative as the Westbard Community Survey, submitted to your offices yesterday, confirms that Westbard-area residents overwhelmingly oppose the proposed WSP.
Irrespective of the Council’s vote today, the Westbard experience has united and mobilized communities across Montgomery County with the common view that the overall Montgomery County planning process is broken.
For the reasons set forth below, we, the undersigned communities, are united in our opposition to the Montgomery County planning process, and we invite other communities to join us in opposition:
First, communities across Montgomery County are equally dismayed by a County-wide planning process that favors developers over communities, and that consistently results in outcomes that communities do not want. The County Council and Board, in apparent partnership with major developers, are now engaged in a full-fledged effort to urbanize rural, sub-urban, and local communities through overbuilding and commercialization of public space, at great profit to developers, but to the detriment of our public schools, the environment, traffic congestion, community diversity, and social services. This will not stop until we unite.
Second, County officials have dismissed, as unreasonable, public opposition to urbanization that favors developers over the environment and over the local, established community, and instead have sought to thwart the overwhelming opposition through a planning process designed to divide and then mislead the community about real intentions and plans. This will not stop until there is reform.
Finally, the undersigned communities stand together and will use every legal and political means at their disposal to reform the planning process, to put an end to unwanted over-development, and to create a process that involves maximum citizen participation. This is the only tenable strategy for improving our built space, protecting the natural environment, strengthening social infrastructure, and preserving our cherished values of diversity and responsible stewardship of the County.
Respectfully submitted,
SaveWestbard, Jonathan and Dominique Cahn, Patricia Kolesar, Bobby Lipman, Stan Wiggins
Rosemary Hills, Leonor Chaves, Mark Mendez, Valarie Barr
Lyttonsville, Charlotte Coffield
Keep Damascus Rural, Seth Gottesman
Luxmanor Citizens Association, Abbe Milstein