Agenda - 04-29-2003-7c - Laserfiche WebLink

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Aft G 1 7� PLANNING THE LOCATION OF SCHOOLS IN ORANGE COUNTY IN THE 21ST CENTURY The ongoing process to site a new high school in southern Orange County has been a source of concern and consternation for many months. To some degree the difficulties encountered are of our own making. To a large extent, however, these difficulties reflect fatal flaws in the statutory process by which North Carolina delegates the authority for siting schools. This is particularly true in an urbanizing area such as ours. We are fortunate in Orange County to have a good system of communication between the school boards and the Board of County Commissioners. Yet, despite good - faith attempts at mutual assistance, the dysfunctional aspects of the school siting process have become increasingly manifest. The most recent result is a time - consuming search that works to the detriment of the children we are all committed to serve, while potentially undermining other community goals related to sound land use, environmental sensitivity and honoring public decisionmaking processes. Once we have sited the new high school, we must change the way we do business. The importance of establishing a timely and predictable process for siting schools is made more acute by the pending adoption of a Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (SAPFO). That ordinance requires a commitment from the county and school boards to provide facilities within a reasonable timeframe to meet enrollment demands generated by growing school populations. There is little leeway for delay. Yet, as we have seen with the current siting of a new high school, a decision may take more than a year as a school board grapples with issues of size and location related to the selection of a particular parcel upon which to locate a facility. Further complicating that process, North Carolina statutes invest the authority to site schools in boards of education that have neither the training nor the support staff to make these increasingly complex decisions. Thus we witness time spent on ultimately doomed consideration of changes to urban service boundaries that are the basis of carefully crafted, community- endorsed land use plans. Similarly misguided efforts have previously included discussion of locating schools in the rural buffer north of Chapel Hill. A lack of understanding of the ultimate land use goals embodied in municipal and county plans is further reflected in comments about building a rural high school in Carrboro's Northern Transition Area, targeted for intensive development, or in remarks that seem to anticipate waves of growth in downzoned areas of southern Chapel Hill. This disconnect is less a failure of individual or collective vision than it is a function of North Carolina's antiquated and compartmentalized method for siting schools that reflects the realities of a rural state that no longer exists. Certainly in our fast - growing county, this arrangement has proven ineffective. We have seen several developers interested in one property attempt to bribe and otherwise manipulate a school board. In another case, the search for a suitable parcel has largely failed to take into account public transportation resources -- negating a chance to teach our younger generation to embrace alternative modes of transit -- in pursuit of an outmoded auto - dependent model promulgated by the state.