The planned urbanization of central Columbia may eventually require a new elementary school, county school officials say. But a more pressing worry is crowded classrooms along the redeveloping U.S. 1 corridor.
Joel Gallihue, manager of school planning, told the County Council and school board recently that apartments and condominiums like those planned by General Growth Properties for Town Center produce more school-age children than they did a generation ago.
Although the economy is slowing, housing will come once land-use approvals are granted, Gallihue said. Using a formula of 0.119 students per housing unit, a 500-seat school might be needed by 2018, if the request is approved and the construction goes according to schedule, he said.
Council member Mary Kay Sigaty, a west Columbia Democrat who represents Town Center, was skeptical that a new school would be needed so soon. But she said the county should plan for a different kind of school building.
"A potential new school is going to have to fit into a much more urban model," she said.
Council Chairwoman Courtney Watson, an Ellicott City Democrat, noted that GGP's plan, which calls for 5,500 new residential units over three decades, has just been submitted to the county and approval is a long way off.
Gregory F. Hamm, Columbia's general manager and General Growth's point man on the 30-year Town Center project, generally played down the potential for more students. Later, he said he is skeptical of Gallihue's formula, but he said General Growth is having a consultant study the issue.
If another school is needed, he has said, the county could reopen the old Faulkner Ridge school in Wilde Lake. Sigaty suggested an addition at Bryant Woods Elementary as another option.
But Gallihue said the Faulkner Ridge building is used for staff development and training - a much more important function since the federal No Child Left Behind law took effect.
The more immediate problem is growing congestion in schools that serve the U.S. 1 corridor, he said.
An enrollment chart based on Sept. 30 figures shows Bellows Spring and Elkridge elementary schools are over the county's legal threshold for crowding of 115 percent of capacity. Under county law, development is delayed around elementary and middle schools that reach 115 percent or higher. The school board considers redistricting once crowding reaches 110 percent.
