DATE: Monday, September 22, 1997            TAG: 9709220057

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY YOUNG, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:  121 lines

CHESAPEAKE RESIDENTS WANT A BETTER MIDDLE SCHOOL SITE HUNDREDS FEAR THAT THE LOCATION IS TOO CLOSE TO A TRUCK STOP AND RAILROAD TRACKS.

Western Branch residents want a new middle school as soon as possible.

But they don't necessarily want it where the School Board has made an offer for land in Sunray, in the Bowers Hill section of the city - a place they say is too close to railroad tracks and a busy truck stop and which the owners, an elderly couple who have been on the land for decades, don't want to sell.

They say they're willing to wait a little longer if it means getting a better site - and ongoing negotiations between the City Council and a land developer in Western Branch just might make the wait worthwhile.

``We don't feel the Sunray site is that well researched, and there's sympathy for the couple,'' said Toni Fogel, a parent who is a member of the David's Mill Civic League and the Chittum Elementary PTA. ``We're all concerned that the site . . . (may not be) safe.''

At the last two public hearings on the school administration's long-term building plans, more than 50 Western Branch residents came either to speak in opposition to the site or silently express support for those who did. They came bearing petitions with hundreds more signatures affirming the same.

The residents not only expressed their opposition to the site, but their concern that the last-minute scramble for land for a school scheduled to open in the year 2000 would be repeated five or 10 years down the road. They fear that it could happen if the district found it needed to build a second high school for the area's growing population.

Fellow Western Branch resident and School Board Chairman Barbara B. Head said she understands the residents' concerns, but that due to such things as wetlands regulations, finding suitable lots has been difficult.

``If I wasn't familiar, I wouldn't understand, either. It all looks like buildable land. People ask, `Why don't you put it where the Food Lion was going to go?' But that's only 7 acres, and we need 33 to 35,'' Head said. ``They're looking at all this spacious land and wondering, `Why in Bowers Hill?' ''

Head said the School Board is still investigating alternatives to the Sunray site and that she hopes it will have a final decision in the next couple of weeks.

One of the sites still being considered is land that was proffered to the city for an elementary school and a middle school as part of a development deal in 1989 in what is known as New Boone Farm. The development itself - once billed as a ``second Greenbrier'' - did not live up to expectations, hampered greatly by wetlands regulations. The legal obligation to donate the school land remains as a condition of development, but since much of it hasn't been developed, the city has been left without the sites it counted on.

But that may be changing fairly soon, said Vice Mayor John W. Butt.

The City Council has been working with the developer to get the proffered school sites, perhaps near Joliff Road, as a part of package that would include reducing the overall number of lots that are zoned for residential use, Butt said. Possibly some of that rezoned land could be used for a park. Currently the developer is paying taxes on the area at a residential rate even though it can't develop much of the land for residential use because of wetlands restrictions.

``We're very close to being settled on this,'' said Butt. ``Personally, I think it would be a lot better near the Joliff Road section because the kids would have the school in their neighborhood.''

Representatives for the developer were unavailable for comment late last week.

Butt said that if the agreement between the City Council and the developer came through, the school system would save the nearly $800,000 it offered for the Sunray site - but that doesn't include any possible land development costs that might be attached to the New Boone site.

For Fogel, from the outside looking in, it would look bad for the city if it didn't get the promised land for the schools, particularly if the alternative is condemning the land of an elderly couple who don't want to sell.

``I'm just concerned that if the city backs down, it will send a weak message to developers, that they'll think they can make promises and if they don't keep them, the city will say, `OK, never mind,' '' she said.

The question remains as to whether all this could happen in time for the district to make its 2000 deadline for the opening of the new middle school - in order to relieve a badly crowded Western Branch Middle School. ``Because we're lacking time, we need both a fast decision and a good decision,'' said Robert Fogel at the School Board's last public hearing. Fogel is president of the David's Mill Civic League and husband of Toni Fogel. ``The fact is, we needed another middle school two years ago.''

Butt said the New Boone option should be worth the wait.

``We're working to try and make it happen, and what we're proposing is by a long shot better than having the site in Sunray,'' said Butt. ``I'd rather take a little bit more time and do the right thing than do something quickly that might not be as good.''

Even if the situation with the middle school does work out to everybody's satisfaction, residents are worried that if finding school land has been such a struggle now, what will it be like if someday the growing Western Branch population requires a second high school?

``It seems to me that what's logical is to at least make plans for something,'' said JoAnn Clarke, vice president of Western Branch Council of Civic Leagues.

But district officials say they are making plans, it's just that right now their projections don't show enough population growth for another high school. The possibility of changing attendance zones so that some Western Branch students might eventually go to Deep Creek schools was raised.

Western Branch High School ``will be overcrowded, but between it and Deep Creek, it won't be overcrowded enough to justify another school. That's the dilemma we're facing. You can't build half a high school,'' said Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols at a recent board meeting.

Nichols said the district does try to buy land for schools well in advance of when it would be needed - negotiations are under way for sites for two high schools, one in southern Chesapeake and one in the Centerville Turnpike/Elbow Road area, neither of which is scheduled to be built in the next five years.

Residents who spoke at the public hearings also opposed the idea of their children being rezoned to Deep Creek High School in the future. Several said they moved to Western Branch because of the schools there - and part of the concern about a second middle school at Sunray in Bowers Hill was that it wasn't centrally located in Western Branch.

``All the schools are unique and assets to the city, but all are not Western Branch,'' resident William Rhodes told the school board. ``They're equally as fine, but all differ in personality.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

CHARLIE MEADS/The Virginian-Pilot

This property between Homestead Road and Military Highway in Sunray,

in the Bowers Hill section of Chesapeake, is being considered as a

site for a new middle school.

Map

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