Sunday, July 29, 2007
Anyone got a Cafritz update?
We were unable, unfortunately, to attend either of the Cafritz meetings this past week... And I see their website has yet to be updated (presumably, they'll be filling in the "goals" section). Would anyone care to give us an update of what was said by presenters and those attending from our community?
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SCHOOL CROWDING angle on Cafritz meeting: Plans for development of the Cafritz property in RP will be released to the community in mid-September. I attended a session last night and was able to speak to Mrs. Jane Cafritz. She seemed taken aback by my very specific figures about school crowding -- elementary, middle, and high -- in regions 5 and 2. She asked me a few questions and I indicated that she would be hearing soon from two school board about the figures (Iliff and Hathaway-Beck). Ms. Cafritz said that developers always pay a school impact fee, etc. People behind me signaled to her very quickly that the region's parents are prickly and quite active on the shifting of resources AND seats away from the inner Beltway and toward Mitchellville and Bowie. We do not believe that a development impact fee paid to the district will find its way back to the neighborhood in any meaningful or mitigating way.
I would ask others to mention the burgeoning student population in Hyattsville, Adelphi, and the three most at-risk and adjacent communities of College, Riverdale and University Parks. The many points of development -- real and virtual -- pose intractable problems for our overcrowded school. EYA and University Town Center are filling; Landy and Cafritz are perculating through the planning process, now. East Campus will include housing also. (Someone else please take up the "parking lot" that Route One is becoming!)
Quite frankly, the politics here are very complex. The pupil accounting pipelines between PGCPS and the County are quite broken.
On a last note, the "swiping"of the much needed northern region high school to Bowie has me quite cynical about process here. I fear that mid-county interests may approve a zoning change without regard to our inner beltway struggles and preferences.
County Councilman Olsen: what say you about all of these school-crowding questions?
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