County Says It Won’t Move School Buses to Controversial Rockville Sites

Ike Leggett announced decision in Thursday memo to council president

By Aaron Kraut

The Shady Grove school bus depot on Crabbs Branch Way Aaron Kraut

Montgomery County will no longer consider parking school buses at two controversial Rockville sites, according to a memo from County Executive Ike Leggett delivered Thursday to the County Council.

“This will inform you that I have directed Executive staff to finalize a plan that will not include the Carver or Westmore sites,” Leggett wrote in the memo to council President Nancy Floreen.

Leggett was referring to a proposal for 100 buses to be parked on an interim basis on a parking lot at the Carver Education Services Center on Hungerford Drive and another approximately 100 buses on an empty lot the county recently agreed to purchase nearby at 1000 Westmore Ave.

The county considered the sites in order to vacate the existing Shady Grove school bus depot, home to 410 buses on Crabbs Branch Way in Rockville. The county selected developers LCOR and NVR to buy the site and other adjacent county property for a mixed-use residential project near the Shady Grove Metro station. But it has long struggled to find sites for parking the buses and accommodating maintenance and driver-training facilities.

Leggett’s announcement Thursday comes after a Tuesday council hearing in which council members said they would vote to stall the formal process for allowing the county to sell the land to the developers. In his memo, Leggett wrote he has withdrawn his request for the council to approve a Declaration of No Further Need for the Shady Grove bus depot site.

Department of General Services Director David Dise told Bethesda Beat Tuesday the county has not finalized a General Development Agreement with LCOR and NVR for the site. He said there is no deadline of January 2017 to move the buses—an assumption the Board of Education was working under while considering the Carver site.

Council members said they didn’t feel comfortable allowing the county to get rid of the land until a permanent bus depot replacement option was identified.

“Once approved by me the plan will be presented to the County Council,” Leggett said of any future attempts at selling the current bus depot property. “Until then the current site will remain for school bus parking and maintenance.”

Members of the Carver Coalition, a group of residents near the Carver site, attended Tuesday’s council hearing. City of Rockville elected officials joined them to protest buses on the Carver and Westmore sites as being too disruptive to surrounding neighborhoods and local traffic.

While council members didn’t discuss other potential sites for the buses Tuesday, they did recognize it’s possible any option will draw criticism from nearby residents.