Opponents of a plan to restrict development near overcrowded Baltimore County schools say it won’t work and could have unintended consequences. Supporters hail it as an overdue step to protect education.
The Baltimore County Council is slated to vote Thursday on the legislation which would update the county’s Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance.
A key part would change what is considered an overcrowded school. Currently a school at 115% capacity is acceptable. The bill would gradually lower that over five years to 100%.
But is an overcrowded school really a bad thing?
Councilman Julian Jones, who opposes the legislation, said maybe not. During a four hour hearing on the legislation last week, Jones said it can be the sign of a good school where parents want their children.
“If you ever go to Disney World or Disneyland, there’s a reason why they’re crowded because everyone wants to be there,” Jones said.
Chairman Izzy Patoka, the legislation’s sponsor, pushed back on that.
Patoka said, “If anyone would like to send their kid to an overcrowded school, raise your hand. Any takers?”
The legislation also would create an Interdepartmental Committee on School Overcrowding that would examine a proposed development’s impact on a nearby school. The 11-member committee would be made up of appointees from the county council, the county executive, the school superintendent and the school.
Republican Councilman Wade Kach said the county has been doing a lousy job of estimating how many new students would come to a new school due to a proposed development.
Kach said, “We need legislation like this to review these projections, because they are not accurate.”
A proposed development would have to receive a school capacity approval certificate from the committee in order to go forward. However, a development could go forward without the certificate after waiting five years, because the county should have had time to prepare for a possible overcrowding issue.
During the hearing, council members heard different reasons why classrooms are packed. Republican State Del. Kathy Szeliga, who represents Perry Hall, said that the high school there has been overcrowded for years and fingered ongoing development.
Szeliga said, “People in the community say you can’t drive in Perry Hall and White Marsh without seeing more housing going up, yet Perry Hall High is still overcrowded.”
Republican Councilman Todd Crandell said there are other causes for overcrowding that the proposed legislation doesn’t address, such as seniors moving out of established neighborhoods and young families moving in.
Crandell calls the legislation flawed.
“It starts out with the premise, the false premise, that development leads to overcrowded schools when there are so many other factors,” Crandell said.
The legislation also would get rid of the adjacency loophole.
This allows developers to build in an overcrowded school district as long as there is a nearby school that is below capacity. The idea is that the school board could then shift students from one school to the other through redistricting.
But it rarely happens.
Republican Del. Ryan Nawrocki said, “Those are the most brutal discussions period. And I would venture to say that most of us are not going to go back to our communities that we represent and tell them it’s time to drive an hour to school.”
Republican Councilman David Marks, who supports doing away with the adjacency loophole, wasn’t cutting the school board any slack.
“The board has utterly failed to redistrict over many, many years,” Marks said. “I don’t think redistricting solves all the problems, but it certainly would have helped not get us to this point.”
Terry Hickey, the county’s housing and community development director, said the legislation would adversely affect immigrants, seniors and others looking for affordable homes.
“This bill will, at least in the immediate term, greatly slow or potentially freeze development in particular areas of opportunity where we are trying to do housing,” Hickey said.
The legislation mirrors a December 2020 report from a task force that has been sitting on the shelf until now.
Yara Cheikh, who served on the task force agreed the county needs affordable housing, but she added that nearly three quarters of the county’s students live below the poverty line.
“And so we are sending kids that already have challenges every single day to overcrowded schools,” Cheikh said.
A majority of council members support the legislation. Support crosses party lines with two Democrats, Patoka and Councilman Mike Ertel, and two Republicans, Marks and Kach, supporting it.
However, amendments are likely and there have been calls to table it for more study.
“I have more questions than I have answers,” said Democratic Councilman Pat Young. “We don’t need to rush it.”
But Young added, “I say that knowing that I am not a parent that has a child in an overcrowded school. For them it is absolutely imperative we do something.”
