The design for a new Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school would take out too many trees, according to Montgomery County planners.
The Planning Board is set to review the school system’s preferred design for the yet-to-be-named Bethesda-Chevy Chase Middle School No. 2 next week. In their report, planning staff says they’re working with MCPS on a new entrance and parent drop-off loop that will mean fewer trees are removed for the project.
The four-story school, set for the former Rock Creek Hills Local Park in Kensington, will help ease overcrowding in Westland Middle School, the only current middle school in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School cluster.
The existing curb cuts at the site (3701 Saul Road) are more than 30 feet below the proposed school building entrance. That means MCPS would have to remove 31 trees and impact two others, mostly because of a retaining wall needed to support the drop-off loop along the steep hill.
Planners suggested moving the entrance to the site further up Saul Road at a higher elevation, meaning less grading and fewer trees lost to construction.
The Planning Board reluctantly transferred the 13-acre site back to the Board of Education in July 2013. The Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) acquired the site from the Board of Education in 1990. At that time, the school system didn’t need the land.
But with increasing capacity issues and the planned reassignment of Grade 6 students from Chevy Chase and North Chevy Chase Elementary Schools, the school system said it needed the site back for a new middle school.
That sparked a lawsuit from neighbors, who hoped to block the school and maintain the park.
The boundary study for the new middle school is scheduled to start in spring 2016 with Board of Education action in November 2016. The scheduled completion date for the new school is August 2017, pending adequate construction funding.
Via Planning Board
