Undeterred by a Court of Special Appeals ruling against them, members of the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association say they’re prepared to take their case against a middle school in their local park to the state’s highest court.
The neighborhood group is against the school system’s plan to to build a second Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school at the park (3701 Saul Rd.). MCPS says it needs the school to accommodate overcrowding at Westland Middle School and the planned reassignment of Grade 6 students from Chevy Chase and North Chevy Chase Elementary Schools.
Neighbors sued to block the school and maintain the 13.4-acre park. At issue was the manner in which 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.
A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge threw out the suit last April, saying the school system had the right to get the land back to build a new school. The Planning Board reluctantly transferred the land back to the Board of Education last July.
The Rock Creek Hills group appealed the Circuit Court decision. Earlier this month, the state’s Court of Special Appeals likewise threw out the suit.
But Citizens Association President Jim Pekar and member John Robinson said they consider the Court of Special Appeals’ findings to be “erroneous,” and they are prepared to file another appeal to the Court of Appeals, Maryland’s highest court:
Last week, a three-judge panel of the Court of Special Appeals, in Annapolis, released a ruling affirming the decision of the Circuit Court in Rockville, to dismiss our litigation seeking to enforce the law and protect Rock Creek Hills Park. The panel did not rule against our arguments that the proposed conversion of the Park is unlawful; instead, their ruling was based primarily on their finding that the appealing parties lack adjacent property owner and taxpayer standing.
Specifically, the Court of Special Appeals held that adjacent property owners lack adjacent property owner standing because the County’s option to reclaim the land for educational use was not a land-use related provision.
This week, the RCHCA Board held an emergency meeting. After reviewing the court’s ruling, and consulting with our counsel, we consider the findings of the Court of Special Appeals to be erroneous. This is particularly true given a March 27 decision of Maryland’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, which reached the opposite conclusion in a different case that dealt with similar issues. Given this, we are preparing a motion for reconsideration, asking the Court of Special Appeals to reconsider their decision on our standing in light of the recent Court of Appeals decision, and to rule on the merits of our case. Failing that, we are prepared to file an application for Certiorari to the Court of Appeals; that is, we are prepared to ask our State’s highest court to consider our case.
Your Board continues to believe that our case has considerable merit,and asks for your continued support in this matter.
In October, the Board of Education approved an agreement that would allow Montgomery Parks to continue to operate Rock Creek Hills Park as a park until construction started on the school. Construction for the unnamed middle school is slated to start in July 2015.
Despite the possibility of another appeal, it appears that opponents of the school realize they might be fighting a losing battle.
Last fall, Robinson told members of the Citizens Association that it would be a good idea to participate in design discussions about the school in order to get the best design for the building.
