DATE: Saturday, November 29, 1997           TAG: 9711290240

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY YOUNG, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   64 lines

CHESAPEAKE'S GOAL OF BUILDING MIDDLE SCHOOL PROVES FRUSTRATING THE PROBLEM IS LAND. ONE SITE IS TOO WET; THE OTHER IS UNPOPULAR.

There are many good reasons why construction on the new middle school in Western Branch hasn't begun yet.

Jim Trautz is tired of the good reasons.

``I want the thing built,'' said Trautz, a father of two current middle-schoolers and four future ones. ``They need to make a sound decision and move on with it; that's what I've been saying all along.''

That's what School Board Chairwoman Barbara B. Head says the School Board wants, too. The new school is meant to relieve crowding at Western Branch Middle School. There are 400 more students than the building was meant to hold, and that number will increase.

The hitch is in finding the land.

The board has two possible sites - one that neighbors don't want, and one that may be too wet to build on.

Last month, things appeared to be on track when the board was offered a free site in the former New Boone Farm development, now called Bailey's Mead.

At that time, the board withdrew another offer it made on land, in the Sunray section of the city, that was mired in community opposition and the owners' reluctance to sell. Among other concerns, residents said the Sunray site was not centrally located in Western Branch and was too near land zoned for industrial use.

The School Board was also responding to pressure from City Council members who disapproved of the Sunray site.

But soil tests on the Bailey's Mead site show that the land is so wet that it will cost more than $1 million to make it buildable.

``It's about as wet as it can be without being considered wetlands,'' Head said of the 37-acre site.

Now the School Board has decided to go back and further test the site in Sunray to determine whether it would be less expensive to build there. The board originally made an offer of almost $800,000 for the Sunray land - less than the cost of developing the free site.

That the Bailey's Mead land would need so much work to be buildable was a shock, said developer C. Raeford Eure. He said land across the street was tested Wednesday for a proposed shopping center. If it also turned out to be too wet, it could put the whole development into doubt.

Without the development, there could be no school site because, while the land would still be there, a road to the land would not.

``You have to ask, `What are the extra costs of something like that?' Everything becomes magnified to the point that the costs just become beyond reason,'' Eure said.

Even if Eure decides to go ahead with the development, it has to be approved by the City Council. Eure said he is negotiating with the city over which proffers he has to include in the application to complete it. The disagreement between Eure and the city could lengthen the process.

Trautz is tired of all the dickering, whether it's between the developer and the city, residents and the School Board, or the School Board and the City Council.

The school, originally scheduled to open in 2000 but now delayed at least a year, is getting lost in the political games and ``hidden agendas,'' said Trautz.

``I'm a father of six. I'm active in the community. I know what the community wants. What the community wants is a middle school,'' said Trautz. ``God, I just wish someone would say this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it.'' KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE SCHOOLS CHESAPEAKE SCHOOL BOARD

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