It appears St. Mary’s Commissioners will approve law changes to allow the county board of education to build a school near Wildewood in the rural preservation district (RPD), as no officials offered objections to the plan.
The St. Mary’s Planning Commission held a public hearing on the issue Monday, and the county commissioners considered the issue Tuesday.
The St. Mary’s County Board of Education has an option on 55 acres of land Wildewood Parkway
for a new elementary school, but the land lies in the RPD and does not percolate sufficiently for a septic system, so access to a central sewer line is needed.
Schools within the RPD are an acceptable conditional use in the county’s comprehensive land use plan, but public sewers are not.
The planning commission endorsed a plan to make a narrow exception in the law, which allows a sewer line to be extended into the RPD only to service an elementary or secondary school that adjoins a development district and is accessible by an existing street.
On Monday the planning commission tightened up the wording of the text change in the law, inserting the word “only” for a school, and removing the word “facility” behind school.
The board of commissioners held a public hearing Tuesday, and stated a decision would be made Dec. 20 after a final public comment period expires. The only opposition received by the board was a letter from the St. Mary’s County Farm Bureau.
Since the issue came to the table, commissioners have brought up a 1998 sewer extension into the RPD for Banneker elementary school, in which residential homes were also served.
County land planner Jeff Jackman clarified that issue, stating Banneker’s septic was failing as well as septic systems of several homes. One of the only exceptions to the public sewer prohibition in the RPD is to alleviate failing septics or health issues.
County Land Use Director Denis Canavan said this amendment to the law is “specific,” and will assure sewers will “not to run rampant through the RPD.”
Kim Howe, capital planning supervisor for the school district, presented 155 letters of support for the Wildewood school site, 71 of which were from within the Wildewood housing development. Howe went on to say the district will have “significant savings” on the property purchase if the contract is settled before end of year.
No commissioners voiced objections to the request, but Commission President Tommy McKay said he is concerned about changing the phrase “for a school facility” to simply “for a school”, because removing facility eliminates any possibility for an early intervention center, or the like.
McKay also took the time to turn the discussion to his board’s decision to not include the property in question within the Lexington Park Development District (LPDD) when it was up for consideration this summer.
If the school site was in the LPDD, no extra exceptions would be needed by the county before connection to the existing sewer system at Wildewood.
McKay went on the say the Myrtle P