Albemarle County Schools’ Populations Are Growing. Unexpectedly. ?!

Is anyone other than the politicians surprised?

The question is – would you support an Adequate Public Facility ordinance?

Aaron Richardson at the Daily Progress reports (no longer available):

Some Albemarle County schools could exceed their capacity sooner than expected, thanks to rapid growth.

Supervisor Ken Boyd curiously chooses the word “adequately” when referring to funding* –

“We’re committed to providing adequate educational opportunities in this county, but we’re going to have to look at what other capital improvement projects we have going on,” Boyd said. “We’d have to take a more holistic view than, ‘Gee, have we got $46 million more to spend on education?’”

“Curious” because either:

1 – He thinks the County should offer merely “adequate (archived: 2016)” education rather than “world class”.*

2 – He’s laying the groundwork for a conversation about adequate public facilities (which tend to be opposed by Realtors) , the long-debated ordinance that would essentially prevent new homes’ construction before adequate infrastructure/fire & rescue/school/etc was in place.

Better schools increase house prices.

At some point, the politicians and the people need to understand that our population is growing, and they need to plan accordingly.

What is an adequate public facilities ordinance? I found the following definition in 2005 (no longer available):

An Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) is a law adopted by the local government that allows it to defer the approval of developments based upon a finding by the governing body that public facilities would not be not adequate to support the proposed development at build out.

What are the components of an effective APF ordinance?
• Identifies the types of public facilities to be considered.
• Limits the period of time during which the deferral on development imposed by an APFO can be in force.
• Requires the locality to have in place a capital facilities plan to remedy the infrastructure inadequacy that has been the basis for the development deferral.

Rather than re-think my unchanged opinion, I’ll just re-publish it:

What we need is healthy balance between the two positions. Anti-growth NIMBYS and conservationists who oppose all growth, either openly or surreptitiously do their position a disservice by taking an extreme position, as do those who are typically portrayed as pro-growth.

Pro-growth, (how about “wise-growth”?) yet still with the understanding that we are going to remain in and live in this area is a good position. Make wise growth relatively simple and easy to accomplish and do not infringe on the private property rights of landowners. The “common-good” argument usually comes with the implicit understanding that the “haves” are going to ultimately lose out to the “have-nots.” This is an untenable position.

Whew.

One would think that some of these people are kids, thereby necessitating new public facilities, right? (and the 2010 Census says the Albemarle County population under 18 is 10,774 (archived: 2012))

Related: Growth, Roads and APFs

* it may be semantics, but I’d rather Albemarle County Schools aim to “provide a world-class education” rather than “achieve recognition as a world-class education system.” Do it first, and recognition is secondary.

** Every time I write a story referencing a Daily Progress story written before the first quarter of 2008 I’m reminded that they deleted all of their archives.