Where to put a new elementary school if one is needed during the 30-year redevelopment of central Columbia is turning out to be more complicated than just identifying a site.
In fact, as Howard County Council and school board members jointly discussed the issue with county school officials Tuesday morning, they seemed to agree that creating a process for a choice is more important as the council prepares to vote on new zoning for the project Feb. 1.
"The simplest goal is just to assure there is an appropriate process," said Joel Gallihue, the school systems chief enrollment planner. "We just want to make sure there is a process," he added at the meeting, held at the county's temporary offices in Columbia.
"Some folks feel we should have a final answer before we do anything," said Councilman Calvin Ball, an East Columbia Democrat. "You've gone in a different direction."
Schools Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin said the board "could reserve a site, but it [the legal reservation] expires after three years."
Council Chairwoman Courtney Watson said "that's an important point."
Mary Kay Sigaty, a west Columbia Democrat who represents the town center area, agreed after the meeting.
"There's not going to be a shovel in the ground for two to three years," Sigaty said. If the school board reserved a specific site for a new school now, that legal reservation would expire before the first building is built. "It would be a waste," she said.
School officials said they are more comfortable with the process laid out in a proposed amendment to the General Plan Amendment that calls for a Columbia Schools Analysis study to identify all the options before any building permits are approved.
The amendment also calls for establishment of a formula for gauging how many new students will come from the first 10 percent of the 5,500 housing units under consideration. Before approval of 25 percent of the total, or 1,375 units, the school board would be required to match the best option to the number of students coming from the new apartments. If needed, a new school site downtown would then be identified by the developer, General Growth Properties, working with county planners.
Cousin said he just wanted to make sure a provision for a school is included in the plan.
"Early on, schools were not part of the process," he said. "This development is different. We don't know what the [student] counts will be."
The amendment is subject to further tweaking before the vote, several council members said, and board member Allen Dyer said the board hasn't voted on a specific plan.
Still, Alan Klein, spokesman for a citizen's group called the Coalition for Columbia's Downtown, said his group wants a permanent potential school site chosen and set aside now.
"We'd rather they do that," he said. The first few hundred apartments built may not reflect how many students per household could spring from the huge project if they are high-end luxury units or for seniors, he said. It's safer to nail down a school site first. The former Faulkner Ridge Elementary in Wilde Lake, one mile away and mentioned by GGP officials as their first choice if a new school is ever needed, "is not in downtown," Klein said and therefore shouldn't be considered.
Gregory F. Hamm, senior vice president of GGP and Columbia's general manager, has said his firm doesn't expect the new residences, which average 1,100 square feet, to produce enough new students to require a new school, but the Faulkner Ridge building is available, though it is used for teacher training now, as are never-built-on school sites in Hickory Ridge and Clary's Forest. Sigaty noted that those sites have remained vacant for decades because they are part of Columbia's required 36 percent of open space, though schools could still be built on them.
Meanwhile, Gallihue said a new model of urban school being developed by the board for about 600 students could be built on as little as 3.5 acres, with innovations such as underground storm water systems or parking used.
"We are willing to look at a multistory building," said board member Sandra French. The board expects to hold a public hearing on proposed educational specifications for such a school Jan. 28 at board headquarters on Route 108. If approved, this type of school could be built in Elkridge along U.S. 1, where a new elementary and later a middle school are needed.
But the smaller footprint building capable of replacing a 15- or 25-acre site used for a 788-student building complete with surface parking lots and three baseball fields could also be used in central Columbia or on older, smaller school sites that date to Columbia's founding in 1967.
Gallihue pointed out the concept is preliminary and there is no design or cost estimate yet.
Cousin called it the "Goldilocks prototype" school, because as Watson explained it, "it's not too big, not too small, but just right."