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October 12, 2005
Hagerstown, Maryland
PUBLIC HEARING – ADEQUATE PUBLIC FACILITIES ORDINANCE (APFO)
AMENDMENTS
The County Commissioners convened the second public hearing to
hear a presentation and public comments on the proposed
revisions to the following articles of the Adequate Public
Facilities Ordinance (APFO): Article II – Definitions, Article
IV-Roads, Article V-Schools, and Article IX-Exemptions, Agency
Participation, in Court Room #1 at 7:00 p.m. Presiding at the
hearing was County Commissioners President Gregory I. Snook.
Also present at the hearing were County Commissioners William J.
Wivell, James F. Kercheval, John C. Munson and Doris J. Nipps.
Michael Thompson, Director of Planning, reviewed the proposed
amendments. He stated that they propose to add Section 2.1(b)
to Article II to
prevent developers from obtaining piecemeal approval of projects
in such a manner as would violate the spirit and intent of the
APFO. Also added to Article II would be Section 2.3.1.1, which
is a definition for “background enrollment growth.”
A definition of Minor Subdivisions is proposed to be added to
Section 2.3.12.1.
Mr. Thompson stated that the bulk of the proposed amendments are
in Article V-Schools of the APFO. It is proposed to amend
Sections 5.1(b) and 5.4.1 to raise the capacity rate for failing
at the elementary school level from the current 85% to 90% of
the state rated capacity. This would be in keeping with the
target class size of 21 students per classroom as established by
the Board of Education. The addition of Section 5.2(c) would
provide for an exemption for public and private schools and
public safety facilities. Section 5.3 has been added to set
forth the manner and timing for enrollment data to be provided
to the County Commissioners by the Board of Education. Section
5.5, Measuring for Capacity, has been rewritten to provide for
the manner in which the capacity of a school shall be measured,
the effect of existing capacity in neighboring attendance areas,
and possible phasing of development. Section 5.5(f) provides
that where a project is found to be inadequate, the project is
to be denied approval, except as provided in Section 9.3A.
Section 9.3A provides additional guidelines for the County
Commissioners to determine if and when a mitigation offer should
be considered. Subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section
establish some criteria on which to base such decisions and
limitations as to when this section could be utilized. They
provide that schools must have adequate core capacity to serve
the additional students, and mitigation plans for major
subdivisions must provide for temporary improvements to handle
additional students with permanent improvements to occur within
three years.
The hearing was then opened for public comment.
After hearing all comments, the meeting was adjourned at 7:50
p.m.
__________________________,
County Administrator
,
County Attorney
,
Clerk