County gives up on Piedmont Crossing site

Planners decide not to pursue the land for a new county school to serve Shady Grove

She added that the school system updated its enrollment numbers to reflect lower student projections cited in the 2005 Census update and lower housing yields within the mid-county area. Both resulted in ‘‘a need for only three elementary schools in the area,” she wrote.

The two-year reservation on using the site at Piedmont Crossing, which is also known as Casey at Mill Creek in the sector plan, officially expired Dec. 23. The site is located between the community of Washington Grove and Shady Grove Road.

After the school system and the Montgomery County Council delayed taking action on whether to pick up the option to use the Piedmont Crossing site in November, Park and Planning staff began discussions with Toll Brothers, the owner of the site, about extending the reservation on the property.

It was Park and Planning’s hope that extending the reservation would give Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) additional time to consider the fate of the site.

Kumm said that after several discussions and correspondence with Toll Brothers it was found that the reservation would be extended to Feb. 5. From there, she said Jan. 22, Park and Planning was seeking to use its Advanced Land Acquisition Revolving Funds to purchase the site, which is estimated to cost between $8 million and $10 million.

If it was found that the county did not need the site, Kumm said, it could have been used for another purpose or sold.

But to access the funds needed for the purchase of the site, she said, Park and Planning would have needed the endorsement of MCPS and a final nod from the County Council.

Bruce Crispell, director of the Division of Long-Range Planning for MCPS, noted the school system could have acquired the site for free, but for that to occur, a land swap would have had to take place.

He explained that the plan was to relocate the school away from the County Service Park area to give the developer more density at the service park site, which is closer to Metro, and allow the county to acquire the Piedmont Crossing site at no cost.

However, he noted that the County Service Park has yet to be relocated.

‘‘It didn’t seem to make good financial sense to spend $8 [million] to $10 million of the county’s money on a site that we thought would be purchased for us by a developer,” Crispell said.

He explained that without the relocation of the County Service Park, MCPS assumes that about two-thirds of the sector plan will get built, and they believe other area schools would be able to accommodate the students generated from that amount of housing.

‘‘If the whole sector plan gets built, then that assumes the County Service Park gets moved,” Crispell said. ‘‘Then that’s 6,000 units and we’ll have the Jeremiah Park site [for a school].”

He said that according to the Shady Grove Sector Plan, Jeremiah Park is the designated site for an elementary school, while Piedmont Crossing was identified as a back-up in case the county failed to relocate the County Service Park.

Jeremiah Park is located within the County Service Park.

If student numbers are higher than what is currently projected and the Jeremiah Park site is unavailable, he said, three other sites have been identified as potential school sites. The properties are located in King Farm and Fallsgrove in the city of Rockville and in the community of Emory Grove, which is also known as the Woodward site.

Crispell said those sites were dedicated to the county through other master plans.

‘‘We feel that we’re covered either way,” he said.

However, some residents feel differently. Pamela T. Lindstrom, who serves as chair for the Shady Grove Advisory Committee, said she hopes MCPS is correct in its projections.

‘‘If that’s right, then I suppose this is a justified decision,” she said.

‘‘But to me, it’s short-sighted to not go ahead and acquire Piedmont Crossing just in case it’s needed,” Lindstrom added. ‘‘If development proceeds and it was found that they didn’t need it, they could just go ahead and sell it at a future time...”