32-Acre Site on Bowie Mill Road
Synopsis
All during the Master Plan development process, a 32 acre site on Bowie
Mill (shown by the circle on the map to the right) was thought to be a future
school site by community participants in the Master Plan Advisory Group.
Less than a month before the Draft Master Plan was published, it was learned
that the site had been declared surplus (i.e., no longer needed for
a school) back in 1996.
Now the executive branch of the county government is seriously considering
the site for affordable housing. At the same time, the County
Council is
debating what will become of the site.
The problems are:
- the community was misled, intentionally or not, during the
master plan process.
- the community was not notified or given an opportunity for input
into the decision to surplus the land in 1996.
- the property has several environmental constraints that reduce
the acreage that can be developed which leads to compatibility
issues.
- if the property is developed by the County, it is unclear if
they would be bound by the zone.
Background
This 32 acre site, bounded by Bowie Mill Road, Daly Manor Place, Darnell
Drive and Ivy Lane, was originally designated to be Olney High School. In
1996, the school board
surplussed the site to the county as part of a plan to pay for the construction
of Forest Oak Middle School in Gaithersburg. This decision was made in a
closed session of the Board of Education, with no community input. The land
use records maintained by the Planning Board continued to list the site
as a future school, even after the deed was transferred to the county.
During the development of the Public Hearing Draft of the Olney Master
Plan, the community continued to believe the site would be set aside for
a school. In fact, serious consideration was given to a plan to move Olney
Elementary School to the site, and then use the current Olney Elementary
School as a civic center. Due to a large public outcry from the Williamsburg
Village community (where the current Olney Elementary School is located,
at the corner of Georgia Avenue and Queen Mary Drive), the plan to move
the school was taken off the table.
Shortly before the publication of the Public Hearing Draft in July 2003,
it was "discovered" that the site had been surplussed to the county, and
the plan was hastily revised to recommend using the site for affordable
housing. No other uses were considered for the land, such as parks and recreation.
The existing zoning, R200, stipulates that 64 unites can be built on
the site. This increases to 78 units when the required MPDUs (14 units)
are included. However, since the county owns the land, the county has the
option of developing it as a county project. If the county chooses to do
this, the county would not be required to follow the R200 zone standards
or to limit the percent of affordable housing built on the site. Theoretically
it could be 100% affordable housing though that is unlikely because
concentration of affordable housing is not the county's policy.
The Planning Board recommended the R200 zone (2 units per acre) for
this property. However, a final vote taken on March 15, 2005 by
the full council approved a R200/PD3 zone (3 units per acre) which
results in a maximum of 117 units built on approximately 21 acres.
Environmental Features of the Land
Natural hydrological features of this site include a free flowing spring,
three streams, perennial wetlands, and floodplain. These features are part
of the sensitive wetlands and headwaters of the North Branch of Upper Rock
Creek. A natural riparian forest that diagonally bisects the 32 acres surrounds
all of these features except one of the three streams. Three utility corridors
(PEPCO power lines, WSSC sewer lines, and Washington Gas Company’s pipeline)
bisect the land in different directions. The Board of Education
indicated in
a letter to the County Council (see page 33 or circle page 11) that
only 21.3 acres are usable.
In the Environmental Resources Inventory for the Upper Rock Creek
Watershed the land is described this way:
One particularly interesting wetland complex occurs along the power
line corridor south of Morningwood Drive. A scrub-shrub wetland exists
in the power line corridor, with alders and arrowwood growing over various
sedges, rushes, jewelweed, and goldenrods. West of the power line is
a young forested wetland dominated by red maple in the canopy with skunk
cabbage growing underneath. An emergent wetland occurs in the northwest
corner of the intersection of the power line corridor with a gas line
corridor, with dead pin oaks and live black willows growing amid a large
area of sedges, grasses, and rushes, with considerable amounts of standing
water. Adjacent to the southeast of the two utility corridors is a mature
wooded wetland featuring pin oaks, red maples, sycamores and tulip poplars
growing above spicebush, arrowwood, skunk cabbage and jewelweed.
This document also notes “A number of shingle oaks occur in the wetland
south of Bowie Mill Road and north of Darnell Drive adjacent to the power
line.” Shingle oak is a Maryland Watch-list specie. Another Park and Planning
publication, the
Olney and Vicinity Environmental Resources Inventory,
uses the following descriptors: forested, scrub/shrub, wetlands, sensitive
headwaters of the North Branch of Rock Creek watershed. Sensitive areas
are defined by the 1992 State Planning Act as streams and their buffers;
the 100-year floodplain; steep slopes; and habitats of rare, threatened,
and endangered species.
Finally, the Montgomery County Countywide Stream Protection Strategy
and the Upper Rock Creek Master Plan recently approved by this Planning
Board, use similar language to describe this environmentally sensitive land.
What are the Issues?
The Decision to Surplus the Land in 1996
In 1996, the School Board wanted to purchase a piece of privately owned
property in Gaithersburg to build what is now Forest Oak Middle School,
but there wasn't enough money. Originally, the board surplussed the Laytonia
High School site (at the north west corner of Airpark Road and Muncaster
Mill Road) (see BOE minutes,
1/22/1996, pages 6, 7), which transferred money from the County to the
School Board. They still needed more money, so on April 23, 1996, in closed
session, they surplussed three additional schools (see
BOE minutes, 4/23/1996, pages 2,3), one of which was the Olney High
School site, the 32 acres on Bowie Mill Road.
In order for the county public schools to surplus land (i.e., take it
out of their inventory), they must get permission from the state Superintendent
of Schools. The Olney Coalition has discovered that the deed transferring
the school sites to the county were all dated in September 1996, but the
letter of approval from the state superintendent was not received until
November 1996. While this seemingly minor detail is not a show-stopper at
this point in time, it does show that the processes laid down in regulations
are not always followed.
The Olney Coalition has not been able to find any record of an opportunity
for public comment on the decision to surplus the school sites.
We have talked with the Board of Education staff that creates the student
enrollment projections, and we understand that the site was not needed in
1996, and that it is not needed now, given current growth levels.
The projections done by the school board do not take into account any of
the additional growth that will be permitted by the various master plan
revisions.
Disconnect Between the Executive Branch push for Affordable Housing
Sites and the Planning Board's Master Plan process
Two disconnected processes are currently underway that each claim to
determine the future of the 32 acre site.
The Master Plan revision process for the Olney Master Plan began in July
2001, and a Master Plan Advisory Group (MPAG) was appointed in March 2002.
More than twenty public meetings were held to gain community input for the
development of the master plan. During this process, the MPAG members believed
the 32-acre site was a future school site (see
letter from Steve Smet, president of GOCA and MPAG member, to the Board
of Education on March 3, 2004, paragraph 2).
In meetings with the MPAG team lead, Khalid Afzal, the Olney Coalition
asked what alternative public uses were considered. Mr. Afzal answered that
he had not considered any other public uses because he did not have to.
In a subsequent meeting with the Parks Department staff, we were told that
Parks was not interested in the site because the topography did not lend
itself to ball fields (the only recreational use considered.)
On the other hand, County Executive Doug Duncan has made a big push to
find sites to build affordable housing in the county. (See
Jim Humphrey's review of the Housing Montgomery
plan.) Seven county-owned sites have been isolated, including the 32
acre site on Bowie Mill* and three
additional school sites that are still owned by the Board of Education.
There have been numerous articles in the Gazette recently about the three
additional sites, such as
this.
Notes:
01/30/2004 Letter
from the Olney Coalition to Planning Board Chairman Berlage
02/05/2004 Notes from
the Planning Board Worksession, which included discussion of the Bowie
Mill Site
See our testimony from the May 5, 2004 Public Hearing:
Olney Coalition Written
Testimony (PDF, 231Kb)
Appendix 1 Minutes of April
23, 1996 Board of Education Meeting (PDF, 13Kb)
Appendix 2 What's Wrong with
the 1980 Master Plan Forecast of Build Out? (PDF, 105Kb)
Appendix 3 How Much Growth?
(PDF, 140Kb)
Appendix 4 Build Out Analysis
(PDF, 71Kb)
Appendix 5a 2003 Census
Update -- Olney (PDF, 90Kb)
Appendix 5b 2003 Census
Update -- Montgomery County (PDF, 81Kb)
Appendix 6 Analysis of MCPS
Enrollment and Projection History (PDF, 49Kb)
Appendix 7 Why Do We Think
Olney Needs More School Sites? (PDF, 110Kb)
Appendix 8 Olney Coalition
Presentation to DPWT and DEP, March 15, 2004 (PDF, 848Kb)
See our report:
32-Acre Former School Site on Bowie Mill Road:
How Should it be Used and Who Decides? (4/27/04)
Corrections:
* 3/11/2004 An earlier version of this page incorrectly stated
that the all four sites surplussed by the county in 1996 were on the
list of available county-owned land for affordable housing. That is
incorrect. The other three sites have all been designated as parks or
conservation easements to existing parks.
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