We all recognize that Frederick County is growing quickly and has for years. Portable classrooms, crowded hallways, many lunch shifts, and other challenges are daily realities for many students. Halting new housing construction would seem like a reasonable approach to help with school overcrowding, which is what the bill intended to address. However, the process in the proposed bill, would not have done much to accomplish that goal.

In 2008, the Board of County Commissioners passed a Temporary Growth Moratorium Ordinance with clearly defined criteria and a clear two-year time limit. This was done to pause residential construction while comprehensive planning could be completed. This was an understandable use of a building moratorium to create a pause for the County to catch up with planning. That is not the case today. We currently have the Livable Frederick Master Plan with smaller area plans such as the Sugarloaf Treasured Landscape Plan and the South Frederick Corridors Plan being implemented, with additional smaller plans being developed. We have Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) guidelines that are clear and must be adhered to by development companies. While we clearly face challenges with rapid growth, adding regulatory uncertainty doesn’t help to build school capacity.

Bill 24-12 would have triggered an automatic residential construction moratorium in any attendance area each time a given school reached a projected enrollment of 120% over the state rated capacity, although the County Council could have rejected any such moratorium with a majority vote or end it at any time. I believed this to be an unacceptable level of regulatory inconsistency. Additionally, each moratorium would require a study to determine the criteria to end it, and an implementation period. Although, each proposed moratorium would be required to end after two years, I ultimately felt it would be adding red tape and delays to the County Code that could be used to postpone projects that have already satisfied APFO requirements. The County collects fees from residential developers, and those projected fees are used to plan capital projects. Introducing possible interruptions in the collection of those fees only delays the creation of much needed school capacity.

Over the last year, three important efforts were initiated to specifically address school overcrowding meaningfully. First, the County Council passed a real property tax increase to generate 21 million dollars annually dedicated to projects in aging school facilities which helps the County to stay on track with the revenue for new capacity projects. Over the summer, County Executive Fitzwater announced initiatives to directly address overcrowding in the eastern part of the County, where enrollment is expected to grow significantly. Additionally, earlier this year, Governor Moore signed into legislation the establishment of the Frederick County School Construction Master Plan Workgroup which is comprised of bi-partisan local and state officials and Frederick County Public School representatives. Although it will take some time to see the effects of these actions, it is still preferable to the disruption and uncertainty that the proposed building moratorium process in Bill 24-12 would have created.

I’m looking forward to hearing the findings and proposals from the Workgroup, and to working with others to address continuing school capacity needs that affect Frederick County students and their families. If you would like to discuss this or any issue, I can be reached at rknapp@frederickcountymd.gov.