July 17, 2002 - More than a month ago, School Board members set a construction plan for county schools, and County Board members accepted those plans a week later.
In spite of those decisions, one Arlington neighborhood continues to seek changes in plans to add onto the nearby middle school, saying the addition will dwarf nearby homes.
School administrators and PTA members say those hopes may be in vain, even with a new historic district proposed.
Westover Village residents protested renovation plans to nearby Swanson Middle School when School Board members were considering the plans in November. The board approved the plans then, and voted again in February to include Swanson on a list of nine schools that would receive construction funds in a bond referendum scheduled for the Nov. 5 ballot.
But the neighbors continue to look for changes to the plans for Swanson, plans they say would add a massive new wing to the school that would dwarf nearby homes. In a series of votes last Tuesday, the Westover Village Civic Association approved changes to a local improvement plan, changes that ask the county to make Swanson school the center of a new historic district in the neighborhood.
A county advisory council still must consider the changes before they can be included in neighborhood renovation plans. But even then, it does not affect the school system’s ability to begin renovations.
Neighbors acknowledge that. "This doesn’t provide us with an awful lot of leverage," said Tom Hogue, president of the Westover Village Civic Association. "But it is a way of saying we do take things seriously, we respect landmarks and want them respected."
Hogue and other Westover neighbors hope that message will play well later this year, when the school board would give final approval to designs for Swanson renovations, or when the designs go to the county Planning Commission for approval.
That’s not likely, said Elaine Furlow, School Board president. If the neighborhood concerns are an issue of the size of the addition to the school, then the board has already considered those concerns.
"That’s already been heard and addressed," she said. "I hope that’s fair, and I want there to be communication with the community. My concern is that we address community concerns. But we also have to address school projects that need to move ahead."
There’s still plenty of time to make the changes neighbors want, Scott Watkins said. Watkins is the Westover Village representative to the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Commission, the county group that will next look at Westover’s requests.
Watkins said he hoped to see changes to the designs from the Planning Commission. But he stressed that neighborhood opposition to the plans was not opposition to Swanson. "We love Swanson. It’s our neighborhood landmark, and we’re positive we can do better," he said.