Schools & Sprawl:
Back to School for Planners
by Tim Torma
... and
School Sprawl
by Edward McMahon
articles from the Planning Commissioners Journal
Schools are an important community asset, and represent one of the largest capital outlays many local governments make. Decisions about school construction and renovation have profound implications for towns, cities, and counties nationwide. Schools can also be a major contributor to sprawl. A look at trends and opportunities, impacts schools have, and the positive role planners and planning commissioners can play. Plus an extended sidebar by Barbara Kent Lawrence on what happens to communities when school doors close.
From PCJ #56, Fall 2004, and PCJ #39, Summer 2000
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Schools are an important community asset. However, there is often a disconnect between school facility planning and other town planning functions. In several states, schools are exempt from local zoning regulations, while in others local review is limited. In addition, capital planning for schools is frequently not integrated with other local capital planning or economic development efforts.
However, even in states where planning commissions or boards don't review schools under local zoning, planners can take an active role in developing a common community agenda for issues relating to the location and design of schools, and how school needs fit with the community's comprehensive plan goals and objectives. Here are some things planning commissioners can do:
1. Ask to review a copy of your school district's facility master plan. This document should have information about plans for school closure, repair, expansion, modernization, renovation, and new construction. Are the district's school plans in sync with the community's comprehensive plan? Are school planners and town planners using the same demographic data?
2. Get a handle on how school investments are planned in your jurisdiction. In many communities the planning commission prepares, or provides comments on, the local capital improvement plan. Use this opportunity to raise questions about the relationship between your community's capital improvement plan and the school district's capital investment or construction plans. Many school districts form advisory committees on school construction. Get one of your members on that committee and work toward school investments that meet educational and other community goals.
3. Find out what state and local policies or rules drive school investment decisions in your town. Some "rules" are actually just policies, and can be more flexible than most people realize. For example, a community in a state with minimum acreage standards may be able to get a waiver for a smaller school site.
4. Support the maintenance of your community's existing school facilities. How does the school district allocate money for maintaining and upgrading existing schools? Keeping schools in good shape can help keep families in existing neighborhoods rather than chasing down the "new good school" at the edge of town. It can also help stabilize neighborhoods. The physical condition of schools is a high visibility cue to residents (and prospective residents) about whether the area is being invested in or "abandoned."
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The story is a familiar one: a wealthy business owner offers a cash-strapped state university a free piece of land in a suburban business park, as the site for a new satellite campus. Of course the state will still have to pay for road improvements, sewer and water extensions, and the classroom building itself, but boosters say the school will help attract companies to the business park. It sounds like a great deal. So what does the state do? It turns the offer down and decides to move the university center into a complex of three empty city-owned buildings in the heart of a faded downtown.
"Why build new when we could, for less money, create a quality educational center in the heart of our community?" asked Hagerstown, Maryland Mayor Robert Bruchey. Why indeed.
Instead of a large single-purpose classroom building in a suburban office park, the state's decision means that in just a few years over 1,500 students will be attending classes in downtown Hagerstown, Maryland. This surprising decision is just the latest manifestation of Maryland's three year old Smart Growth Initiative and it illustrates how the actions of federal, state or local government can either contribute to or help to prevent the kind of suburban sprawl that is so common throughout America.
Federal, state and local governments construct new facilities all the time. The location and design of these facilities can either help make local smart growth strategies work or they can make the problem worse. In announcing the state's decision, Maryland Governor Paris Glendening said that "the downtown site meets our smart growth goals, since we are investing in the Hagerstown economy and revitalizing the city, saving taxpayers millions of dollars in unnecessary roads and other infrastructure costs, and preserving our open space and natural resources."
Travel across the country to Tacoma, Washington and you'll hear the same story. The University of Washington rejected a greenfield site for its new South Puget Sound campus and, instead, decided to restore six historic warehouses in a dilapidated district on the edge of downtown Tacoma. Today, the area is a thriving museum and university district. Retail and restaurants have returned and downtown is undergoing a renaissance. Hagerstown and Tacoma are two "win-win" examples of how smart growth ought to work, but these examples are the exception rather than the rule, especially when it comes to school construction.
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Both articles can be ordered & downloaded. Click lightning bolt icon at top left.
Read first few paragraphs of School Sprawl article: