More Off-Campus Housing
Harrisonburg continues policy of build it whether they're coming or not
Harrisonburg City Council this week approved the addition of 147 new students to the city’s public schools. The new students will be the result of Tuesday’s actions, and do not include growth from other planned developments.
Since 1999, the trend has been one new K-12 student for every three beds of student housing added. If that trend holds, and there’s no reasons to believe it won’t, 147 is the number of K-12 students expected as a result of a 440-bed complex approved this week.
With the size of JMU’s student body essentially unchanged, more housing for the same students is not needed. In addition, the university would like to add more on-campus housing. This creates a growing glut of student housing, with students tending to choose the newer complexes, and families with school-age children moving into the older complexes.
Estimates for new students from the recently approved Bluestone Town Center are around 300. Adding that to the potential 360 from 1,080 beds of student housing already approved and the 147 from Tuesday’s action suggests a total of 800 new K-12 students over the next 5-7 years, if there is no other growth. That’s about the equivalent of Bluestone Elementary School or, more likely, three hugely over-crowded schools followed by a redistricting leaving us with five or six slightly less over-crowded schools.
Much of local planning for school growth is based on estimates and projections from the Weldon Cooper Center at U.Va. Those estimates are based on current housing and current population, a fact City Council members have proven themselves incapable of grasping. It doesn’t factor in approved or planned housing and the students it brings in. The school system is trying to come up with its own estimating process, based on the processes used by many other Virginia localities.
Attempts to explain the estimating process to City Council members has proven fruitless so far. During a recent attempt, a council member asked why not just use Weldon Cooper numbers. The answer is they could if the City Council would quit approving every student housing project placed before it.