Robert, where exactly is all this land for school sites? IF you are referring to HS 6, yes that will be built but to relieve Briar Woods..it will have NO impact on Stone Bridge. Get over that! There is NOTHING wrong with having community schools. Placing schools where no one can have a walk zone cost more money over the years in transportation costs..which are not going down. Yep, at certain times of the day there will be some traffic impact. There already is…but the current impact will decrease with the opening of the new middle school. So…your so called traffic issues will not be as much of a problem as you think. The long term projection of Stone Bridge continues to be above 1600…spending time trying to play that numbers game and not building schools WHERE THEY ARE NEEDED will mean boundary changes every few years. THERE IS NOT ROOM IN HS6 for northern Ashburn…sorry. So without a new school Lansdowne will remain at Tuscarora and will get over flowed to Heritage..or somewhere else. But it won’t be Stone Bridge.

You keep flailing away at that mythological “high-priced public relations campaign.” Maybe that helps you stay in denial about how you betrayed your own neighbors, and maybe it gives you an excuse for ignoring the proximity of Lexington 7 to Lansdowne where kids could have walked or ridden bikes to school.
It doesn’t mitigate your total obsession with deceiving your own neighbors and it will never explain why Ralph Buona and your champion, Chairman. Hornberger, blew them off even if it meant public dishonesty.
Just so you’re happy and the NCC gets a bailout. It’s all good. The taxpayers will never know how much it really cost.

That crossing guard argument is weak and completely false. There are many kids who walk to Belmont Ridge Middle School and take many different routes besides crossing at that one intersection where they have placed a crossing guard.  There are well more than 30 middle school students that walk up my one street every day, and none of them use the intersection with the crossing guard.
As far as transportation, it is false that this HS will serve Kincora and Belmont.  Kincora students will go east to Park View and Belmont kids will stay at Stone Bridge.  HS-8 will serve 800 kids from Lansdowne to relieve Tuscarora and 800 kids from Ashburn Village to relieve Broad Run.  Bussing kids from Ashburn Village across Route 7 is not nearly as costly as bussing the entire community of Lansdowne to Leesburg area schools.  And definitely less costly than causing a ripple effect of southern shift that will require bussing many communities’ kids outside of their own neighborhoods.
LCPS has already said they are reconsidering the HS-8 walk zone and residents have voiced support to expand the walk zone.  Even if some people in the walk zone CHOOSE to sit in traffic(and create the traffic), they are spending their own money on gas, not the county’s money.
How about you tell the truth and admit you just don’t want this school in your backyard? Why continue these grasping arguments and attacks?  Now that the BOS has moved to finalize the NCC purchase, how about we come together as a community and focus on embracing this new HS for Ashburn and for Loudoun?

This canard is another pretextual excuse for reckless spending to locate HS-8 at Lansdowne Sports Park and pay twice the market value, and 20 times the earnest money, for 45 acres where the school will not be built at NCC.
Look at the daily report from the crossing guard at Belmont Ridge Middle School. So far this school year, an average of 10 student pedestrians crossed in the morning and 20 in the afternoon at the intersection at Belmont Ridge Road and Riverpoint Drive. There are 1,413 students at the school. That is an average of one percent who walk every day.
No middle school students drive or have cars. With 1,600 high school students, that option will be available to half of them every year.
When you make the transportation argument what you omit is the fact that most students who attend HS-8 will come from One Loudoun, Kincora, Belmont, and Ashburn Village. They will cross Route 7 on school buses except when they drive themselves, are driven by their parents, and ride with their friends who have cars and drivers licenses. And even then, the school buses will still run, even though they are mostly empty. That is the waste.
Most of the high school students who live in Lansdowne will not live in the walk zone. See the LCPS map.
If you want Loudoun County to have the highest taxes in Virginia because you don’t like Tuscarora HS or you fear being moved from Stone Bridge to Broad Run HS when HS-6 opens, just say so. Then at least you will be telling the truth.
But the transportation argument refutes your point. It will cost more to bring kids from south of Route 7 on school buses.

Opponents always fail to mention the long term transportation savings with the NCC site.  NCC is the ONLY Ashburn site that allows for a large walk zone.  $1.5 million dollars a year in savings to the County!  Add that up over 100 years and then tell us which site is “cheapest”.
And yes, avoiding another nasty all out boundary war between Lansdowne and Ashburn Farm over Stone Bridge is a motivation, because having been through that already, no one wants to do that again.  The goal is to get as many students as possible going to schools within their communities.  Not to bus kids all over the county looking for seats.
As for the division amongst Lansdowne residents, you can blame a high priced public relations campaign for that.  They wanted to pit neighbor against neighbor and they succeeded.  Who did that benefit?

NCC’s 45 acres could have been sold years ago at market price for an active adult community, 55 plus, no children, no impact on schools, if the seller, Oxford, had not needed to pay down its $50 million lien for Northern Virginia’s second-largest ballroom. That is what makes this a TARP for the NCC.
Big picture would suggest that when you issue permits for three large residential developments totalling five or six thousand units, that would be a good time to exact proffers for land for a high school. Not 15 or 20 years later. Loudoun just builds all the houses and then goes “doh!—we forgot the high school.”
Big picture guys look down the road. Big picture guys don’t lie about proffers.
Why do you keep bringing up Lexington 7? What about three other properties suggested from the public that big picture guys never acknowledge? All over 100 acres, all hundreds of K’s less per acre or already county-owned, all closer to the Ashburn population in need, all not “prime commercial” fronting on Route 7.
Oh, but they won’t pay off the NCC lien and pay for their parking deck. They don’t provide an ironclad guarantee that Ashburn Farm won’t be reboundaried out of Stone Bridge. What a horror that would be for the school board chairman.
Had you noticed. Commercial stands empty up and down Route 7 and like NCC, goes in every year for assessment reductions. Maybe that’s why residents pay 68% of the cost of running the county and Loudoun’s tax rate is 20% higher than Fairfax, and 5% higher than Prince William. Can you name a county that has a higher tax rate than Loudoun?
Speaking of the big picture, if you want to build and lease commercial space on Route 7, why push for Metro in the Greenway corridor?
The NCC is zoned industrial, not residential and not commercial. If you want to rezone, abandon proffers, and sock it to the residential sector, that’s fine. Just be honest about it and don’t call yourself a fiscal conservative.
Why not avoid the public perception that the county is run by manipulative, dishonest, and deceptive public officials who pander to cronies and special interests.
And could not care less about the residents who carry the economic burden and pay the bills.

Dagg,
Regarding the “cheaper” conversation - no one, including you, enumerated the fiscal impact of the two properties - NCC or Lex7 - if developed in the likely fashion or path they were on. Lex7 as high-quality office, economic development project of the first kind. NCC was in the process of being rezoned for, you guessed it, more homes just like the rest of Lansdowne is.  So, if a HS doesn’t go on one of them, then the BOS has to take that into consideration because, as is their responsibility, they have to see the BIG PICTURE.  Nimby’s only are concerned with the current crisis affecting them. They don’t care about the future or the well being of the County…just that their own little shangra-la keeps going up in value and all (even if that means they’ll pay more in taxes…wicked cycle, eh).

So, puting a HS on land that otherwise was going to go residential and be a continuing DRAIN on County resources (schools primarily, ironically, or is it??). And Lex7 will bring in hundreds of thousands of taxes and spending more business growth, helping to expand the tax base and lessen the residential burden.

So, Robert, can you take those “costs” into account, please, and consider what site is “cheaper”, when you factor in the BIG PICTURE?  Thanks.

Robert Dagg you are the man!

This is not a partisan issue. This is reckless spending driven by political motives that disregard facts, cost, and engineering. It is clear that Mr. Buona either did not understand this proposal, or deliberately misrepresented the facts, as stated in his comments on Feb. 14:

“This has been a very divided issue for the Lansdowne Community.
“I did my own polling throughout the district and specifically up in Lansdowne.
“In the district as a whole the affirmative for this site runs in the upper 70%.” In Lansdowne it is nearly as high as well.
“This site was $6 million cheaper than the alternative. Let me say it again, $6 million less expensive.”
“When the speakers tonight are talking about fiscal conservatism. We chose the least expensive site by far.
“What I do like is it’s precedent-setting.
“Instead of building a school on 75 acres, we are building a HS on 45 acres.
“And it is two story.
“So the schools are setting a precedent. In the future when they want to build the next high school we have to look and say well we buillt HS-8 on 45 acres, why do you need 75?”
“I think we have set some precedent about future acquisition as well.”
Mr. Buona should correct the record.
1. The site is 75 acres, not 45.
2. There was no polling. If he is referring to the vote on the bond referendum, he needs to acknowledge that the board chairman bundled several school construction projects to make sure the opposition to the $20 million land purchase at the NCC did not threaten the other two schools for Ashburn District.
If Mr. Buona actually did a poll, he should publish its content and results in a public place and state how, when and where the data was acquired.
3. Mr. Buona did not disclose his relationship through the Loudoun Chamber of Commerce with NCC general manager, Kurt Krause.
4. Mr. Buona did not disclose his private meetings with multiple parties involved in the NCC deal, including members of the Lansdowne HOA board who do not speak for the Lansdowne community.
5. The Lansdowne HOA refused multiple requests, over a period of 18 months, for an informational meeting within the community. The last 3 HOA presidents have all favored the school at HS-8, two of them for political reasons. They did not disclose these conflicts nor did they disclose their private meetings about HS-8 to the residents.
6. The site of the school was changed from the NCC property to Lansdowne sports park. That site has unstable fill dirt which will demand a much more expensive construction process.
7. The “much cheaper” comment is disingenuous and discounts facts that are readily available to Mr. Buona.
Loudoun County officials have scrupulously avoided stating the actual cost of this school, to include the multiple traffic circles, retaining walls, redesign of the school, etc. etc. etc.
The cost of the land exceeds the cost of Lexington 7 by $100,000 per acre and Five Fields by $$410,000 per acre. By no one’s math is it “cheaper overall.”
If Mr. Buona were being honest, he would publish the value of the cumulative tax base represented by Lansdowne, the number of homes put on the market since this project was announced, and compute the hit this will mean for the county’s revenue stream.
It would be a huge relief if Mr. York and Mr. Buona would simply announce that they pushed this project through for political reasons.
They demean themselves and damage the regional reputation of Loudoun County by reciting dishonest, illogical, pretextual excuses for building this school regardless of cost. That is what they are doing.

They are not fiscal conservatives. They are politician who are pandering to special interests who give them money and support.
If they were interested in saving money for the county, they would have chosen a different site.
When a community becomes as divided as Lansdowne is, it is not because of the residents, regardless of where in the community they live.
It is because the HOA Board, the Loudoun School Board, and the Board of Supervisors failed them. Not one of these elected boards was transparent, none asked for value engineering to determine the best use of tax dollars, and never at any time did Loudoun County seriously negotiate for any other site.

Why don’t they just say so? Then at least they would be telling the truth.

Just proves the apple does’nt fall far from the tree.  The federal republicans are making a mess of things.  why not the local republicans

Well said Lansdowne Mom.  It’s a shame that this article gives the impression that no one in Lansdowne supports this school—based on just one public input on Valentine’s Day.  Large groups of NCC supporters spoke at the two previous public inputs, and throughout the past year alongside our Ashburn neighbors in support of the 3-school solution.

Dear Ashburn,
Please know that the opponents are minority in Lansdowne.  The rest of us supported the Ashburn 3-school solution and are grateful to be finally stabilizing our whole district with HS-8.  Please don’t hold the antics of a few against our whole community.
Best,
Your Lansdowne neighbors

for those opposed: you cry foul when you were sent to Tuscarora and now you cry foul when you get a new school to serve your children…wow! WHAT DO YOU WANT? Personally, I could care less…go ahead, fill up Tuscarora, don’t get a new school, you will just be overflowed to Heritage. No room anywhere else. Don’t count on HS-6 to save you…Briar Woods has got that covered!

Kill the Nimby! Vote here!

Interesting that someone’s decided that it MUST be the same person posting under different handles if they are speaking words for NCC site.  It COULDN’T be one of the DOZENS of people who have vocally supported this site for the last year plus. 

Twist the facts all you want.  Lexington 7 is a more expensive site with much higher costs to build, including a tunnel under a four lane road and an enormous amount of unusable acreage.  The Southern Shift is a short term VERY pricy fix in transportation costs and puts a school where it is not currently needed.  A school is needed in Lansdowne/Ashburn.  This is the best site.  It’s the least expensive site in the short term AND the long term.

As for the Lansdowne elitist thing…I don’t have any neighbors that I know who own a BMW or a Mercedes.  I don’t personally know anyone who belongs to the “club.”  I clip coupons—and I really don’t remember the last time I had my nails done.  But my late model minivan and I seem to fit in here just fine.

What’s amazing is that opponents of the NCC are using this blog to direct their anger toward one woman who took on the job of organizing the masses of supporters across Lansdowne and Ashburn.  And they go so far to fault her for all the time and effort she put in toward something she believes in.  What a compliment—to say that one suburban mom has 4 elected Boards in her back pocket!  Here’s a hint when trying to get elected Boards to hear the concerns of a community…remember the two R’s, be Rational and Respectful.  Try it next time.

” the school population is on the decline as per LCPS CIP presentation”

You are an imbocile if that is what you construed from the presentation.  The ESTIMATED size of future years ADDITIONAL/NEW students to the district is what is showing a decrease from previous years ESTIMATES.

The student population has and will continue to increase - it has not plateued or begun to decrease.

If you don’t understand that or fail to grasp that, how can anything you say be given an ounce of consideration??

Carl, if only it would just be $90 million. That is the amount in the CIP just for construction and does not include the exorbitant cost of the land—padded so the taxpayers can fund NCC’s new parking deck and paying down their liens. The NCC property did not test out to be adequate for the school building so they had to MOVE the school to other public property they are TAKING from the middle school and the sports park. Mr. Buona is reciting the lines he was taught and does not have his facts straight. There will be 45 acres from the NCC for $20 million. Since the school can’t be built on it they are also taking 30 acres of other public land by destroying Lansdowne Sports Park, a jewel in the Loudoun Parks and Rec’s crown. Total acreage: 76 just like all the other schools the fiscal conservatives complain about.
Lex 7 was 76 acres for $26 million. Easy math. The $90 million does not factor in the $1.5 to $3 million cost of constructing each roundabout (four planned as of now), 2,000 foot retaining walls due to steep slopes, extensive wish list of traffic calming devices, many of them disallowed by VDOT, cost of buying additional land for the roundabouts and widening Belmont Ridge, etc. Most alarming is that Scott York does not know how the NCC is zoned, Ralph Buona does not know how much land the county is taking and buying (76 acres), and Eugene Delgaudio is completely ignorant about the costs. These are the “fiscal conservatives on the Board of Supervisors.” Unfortunately the rest of the Board of Supervisors is too timid to speak up.
Meanwhile, the school population is on the decline as per LCPS CIP presentation. The public is being taken for a very expensive ride. Just watch this unfold.

The NCC site has been under consideration for nearly 3 years now, with public comment/input for over a year now…..for those of you who were waiting for your door to be knocked on and your hand held….sorry, it just doesn’t work that way! In fact, the BoS came “public” long before they needed to, probably compromising their negotiating power—because of the NIMBY’s and Lex 7 owners funding neighbor outrage.  They have no one to blame but themselves for a high price tag.  However, the fair market value of this land is comporable (and less expensivethan lex 7) to other similar sites.
I am HAPPY to have a school in Lansdowne, and look forward to seeing my property values increase because we finaly have stable boundaries.  Those who are worried about their “investment property” next to the site, and threatening suit for the sole purpose of delaying—your values will go up with a school, and unstable boundaries will continue to have negative impact on our housing values.

@Really?, Let’s talk about the construction cost of the school.  According to the CIP, it will cost $90 million to build HS8, primarily due to the extra cost of shoehorning it in on a lousy site, and it will only have a capacity of 1,600. 

It will cost $88 million to build HS6, with no land costs, and it has a capacity of 1,800 students! 

That extra construction cost, plus the loss of a nice community sports park, needs to be figured in any cost analysis.  Ripoff!

There you are! New handle, same imperious attitude of entitlement. This is not an attempt to open your mind to a different point of view. In fact why don’t we just stipulate that you know what is best for everyone else do we can lay that topic aside.
The observation is that your demands were so shrill and unrelenting and your 24/7/365/5-year focus so all-encompassing that you successfully co-opted every public board. How great that you have time for all those meetings!
I am sure your family is grateful to get you back.
It just seems a shame that your neighbors in Lansdowne get stuck with the bill for the Lansdowne Academy for the Elite.
They were abandoned by the dysfunctional Lansdowne HOA Board, the dysfunctional School Board (now under new management), and the Board of Commerce, oops meant to say supervisors, whose generosity will buy the NCC a new parking deck VERY soon!

Misinformation abounds.

I, along with multiple others, have spoken in favor of this site at BOS meetings since July of 2011.

Lansdowne HOA has been sending out information on this site since December 2010—the meeting at which Lori Waters presented the site option.  If you didn’t know for the last year PLUS that this school was in the works, you must have been living under a rock.

Seldens Landing Elementary School currently has 6 5th grade classes, 8 4th grade classes, 6 3rd grade classes, and 6 2nd grade classes.  Each is FULL at 27/class.  Do the math…the first full class of HS8 will have over 700 from SELDENS.  Not to mention the kids from the Lansdowne Town Center who don’t fit into Seldens.  That is more than half the capacity of the school coming from the surrounding neighborhood. 

Talk about the cost/acre of Lexington 7 all you want.  But that site has a 200 foot building setback and a FOUR LANE ROAD running through it.  Usable cost/acre—calculate out THOSE numbers and you’ll see what a BARGAIN this school is.

As for it being SO much more expensive than previous schools—costs per acre have gone up since those plots of land were procured.  Land in Ashburn and Leesburg is expensive. 

Spare the lawsuits, folks.  It’s a waste of time and taxpayer money.  We need this school.  It’s the right site, the right time…and I’m truly sorry if it’s in your backyard.  I’m only 3 blocks from the school, but I’m willing to suck it up because I would really like to see a day when my children aren’t in classes that are at maximum capacity.

Louis- the last boundary adjustment was a couple of years ago.  There will be 800 Lansdowne students by 2015 when HS-8 opens.  Ask Dr. Adamo.  Or just go to Seldens Landing’s overcrowded classrooms and see for yourself what’s coming.

Rachel - I live in Lansdowne and I WANT the high school.  The new reality as you put it is great.

Stone Bridge, Broad Run, and Briar Woods are maxed out. So the High School is needed, plain and simple. The question is, should it be placed north of Route 7 or South of Route 7 on land the county owned?  Either the Lansdowne site or the parcel of land in Ashburn at Waxpool & Farmwell. 

Given the Ashburn location is a stone’s throw away from Broad Run, the Lansdowne location (considering the number of kids from that area) makes to most logical choice geographically and logistically.

So all you Lansdowne yuppies need to get over your NIMBY-ism and accept the new reality.

Its 550 Lansdowne kids per the school system as provided in the last boundary adjustment.

Actually, I recall it was Lansdowne neighbors who - during the public hearings for yet another PDH housing development on the NCC site, which they vehemently opposed due to traffic, noise, lights, crime (sound familiiar??) - through out the idea “how about a school here instead?”.  And some of the Supes bit. The rest is history…but I’m sure there is plenty of behind the scenes rangling that occurred before and after that point in time…but let’s not forget, this chunk of ground was in the cross hairs of being rezoned for a couple hundred units…if it’s not a school, that rezoning will resurface instantly. And it will be more of the same - more homes, minimally offsetting proffers, more kids to overcrowd the school system while we all play ‘where to locate a school that isn’t in someone’s backyard but doesn’t eat up valuable tax-producing commercial land that is absolutely essential to expand the tax base and reduce the burden on homeowners to pay for the dang new schools required because teh BOS keeps approving residential upzonings rather than letting them go by-right if they dare’.

Talk about misinformation…this school will serve 800 kids in Lansdowne, not 300.
Why can’t my neighbors see the bad situation for our students.  No need to villify someone for advocating to get their community’s kids out of overcrowded classrooms and further boundary shifts.

I just am so ashamed of my neighbors for pushing this school in this location.  With only an estimated 300 students coming from this area, why do we feel entitled to a school when one could be more centrally located to accommodate everyone.  Also, why can’t my neighbors see the cost, environmental factors, noise, lights, traffic, etc. are NOT good for our neighborhood.  Yes, it keeps the kids close - but have you thought about your neighbors who directly surround the area.  I can only assume that most who are in favor are the least affected by this choice location.  Think beyond the 4 years that your child will be going to school - think about the big picture.  Think of the ENTIRE neighborhood.

As for 70% being in favor, I find that hard to believe.  How can you quote numbers that have not polled? 

I am so saddened that this school is being rammed through at the expense of sports fields and the middle school grounds.  I am also upset that this new Board of Supervisors hasn’t at least put it on hold to explore further.  It’s a disgrace.

I also resent the term NIMBY because I believe this is a bad choice.  I do think a high school is necessary.  But with so many kids from Ashburn and so few from Lansdowne, our backyard seems an elitist choice.

Disregard any statement with Nimby in it.

I do not live in Lansdowne.  And I do not have a dog in this fight.  I however am sick and tired of comments on here about BMW driving “rich kids” and teachers with Hondas.  First of all, most kids in LC do not drive BMW’s.  Drive in any school parking lot.  Do some kids have nice cars?  Yes.  This is the riches county in the U.S. but the cost of living is higher as well.  So let’s but things in perspective. Secondly, what comes with a wealthy county is a pretty healthy tax base.  And because of it, our cuts have not been as drastic as other parts of the country.  So, we shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds this great County.  That goes for the teachers as well.  Not just FLES teachers are losing their jobs elsewhere, but teachers with 20-25 years under their belt.

Disgusted—(For the record, I am a different handle.) No one is gloating.  Is there relief and happiness that our community’s childen will have stable boundaries and not be packed in like sardines like they are now? Of course.  Is there frustration with claims that residents have been kept in the dark—even though this issue has been torturing and tormenting us for more than a year? Of course.

Many of us believe that this school—going next to an existing school—will enhance the public amenities that we already have within our community, not trounce on it. It’s not like we’re supporting a prison, power plant or airport. It’s a school for our neighbors’ children.  The stadium location was changed because of feedback from the residents back in Dec. 2010, when it was far from a done deal.

Please—can’t we just get along and move forward?  I’m sure you’re very nice in person. I can’t stand this anonymous blogging. It’s not healthy :)

Dec2010 the BOS did come…with their minds made up. Started with “is this a good idea or bad idea?”...then the plans were thrown on the screen!!!  At that meeting it was 50/50 then, but not any majority for this location at all!

Stop Twisting Words has spouted misinformation about this and continues to do so by changing her handle every 15 minutes. Having just blown $30 million of taxpayer money and run over her neighbors in her cleats she must really be feeling the power.
HS-8 SCHOOL WAS MOVED FROM THE NCC TO THE SPORTS PARK in NOVEMBER 2011 which is why the “nimby’s” were “late to the party” as STW likes to say, emphasizing her own queenly position. NO HIGH SCHOOL WILL BE BUILT AT THE NCC because of the inferior quality of the overpriced, twice market value land. land. Time to spike the ball and go over to the NCC and for a drink on the house. Thanks for the misinformation. Without you, this pathetic excuse of a school site would not have been possible.

Lex 7 didn’t get a bailout of their property they haven’t been able to sell, so they have people on here crying that NCC was a bailout!
How ironic!

Au contraire—
The BOS and School Board came to the Lansdowne community in DECEMBER 2010 to let us know that they were considering the NCC site for HS-8.  Then they came back to us in June 2011 with more info and said they intend to move forward with the NCC.  Plenty of time to voice opinions given the land contract was not initiated till September 2011.  Also, the School Staff has modified the original site plan twice to accomodate the concerns of adjacent residents.  The BOS has been transparent.  You just don’t agree with the final decision.

Ahh.  Typical conservatives.  Who cares about the tax payers when there are businessmen who need a shot in the arm from the government.  Funny how they claim to be against Keynesian economics, when in practice they do exactly what Keynes suggests.  You just need to be connected well enough to get a piece.  Hence the growth of the American oligarchy.

There were no meetings, no polls and no transparency.  The people you are calling NIMBYs didn’t find out you moved the school to their back yard until November.
Now you can gloat and feel superior. Doesn’t make any difference to you just do you get what you want. You don’t get how you have been used to bail out the NCC because you are so self-absorbed.

It is precedent setting because it shows that we don’t need to buy 75-100 acres every time we need a HS.  Creatively co-locating with existing schools and using land already owned by the County saves tax dollars.
Stop focusing on 19 to 1.  This implies there has been no support of this site.  Supporters have been coming out in large numbers for over a year and outnumbering opponents at almost every public input.  This is the one time that the supporters chose not to attend due to Valentine’s Day and that is used to falsely imply that there is more opposition.  Really?  The opposition got desperate and worked hard over the past 2 weeks to rally one big showing and all they got was 19.

The $110 million price tag for HS-8 divided by the capacity of 1,600 seats = $68,750 a seat.  What a ripoff!

It is difficult to understand how someone who appears outwardly to be as intelligent at Ralph Buona can make such fundamental math errors. He stated the school will be “precedent setting” by being built on 45 acres instead of the usual 75. It WILL be built on 75 acres, Mr. Buona and Mr. York.
You are purchasing 45 acres from the NCC at $442,000 each. You are TAKING 18 acres from Belmont Ridge Middle School and 12 from Lansdowne Sports Park. Total: 75 acres.
It is also difficult to understand how an intelligent man like Eugene Delgaudio can keep a straight face while telling a big fat lie on camera. The 75 acres at Lexington 7 (1 of 3 other sites available at lower cost) was priced at $26 million, same as $342K per acre. That is $100K less per acre than what you are paying Oxford Communities for 45 acres with a market price of $9 million. You used the weasel word, “overall cost” to obfuscate the underlying lie.
Lex 7 does not need 4 traffic circles, 2,000 feet of retaining wall, 11 neckdowns, 13 speed bumps, and Lord knows how much other unnecessary expense to built this school for the Elite while Park View gets a $3 million renovation.
None of you is a fiscal conservative. You are people with just enough power to overtax your abilities and you are living, breathing examples of the Peter Principle in real life.
It was embarrassing to watch your smug self-satisfaction at how easily you cheated your constituents. Congrats. Have a round at the Hop ‘n Brew on Kurt Krause.

Jim,

Landsdown is in the Ashburn School district, not Leesburg, not Catoctin. They ought to be served by the planning zone in which they reside, Ashburn. If this is a free for all I want my kids bused over to the Blue Ridge district.

http://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/66/cip/LCPS School Sites Inventory updated 02.14.12_1.pdf

19 spoke out against it, 1 for it, using BOS logic of what speakers say, this deal is dead in the water, there are too many opposed.  On to the next site.

Ashburn supporters wanted the Lansdowne kids out of Stone Bridge and back in a Leesburg school where they live.  They got it.  Now the Ashburn supporters want the kids in Northern Ashburn and Ashbrooke out of Broad Run.  They’ll get it. Add the interest by some in the Truman Show community of Lansdowne’s to have their own high school, it makes a politically wonderful perfect storm.  The bonus to it all, the Board of Supervisors can show that LCPS doesn’t need all the land they say they need, take control of land acquisition, and perhaps drive down school costs in the long run.  It’s a shame it has to come at such a high price tag.

Yeah, hurray to the School Board for cutting a fat and bloated LCPS but shame on the Board of Supervisors for overpaying for a spit of land.  Cutting of your nose to spite your face is never good fiscal management.

i want to beat the #### out of nimby

Until someone shows another site with lower capital and operational costs over the next 50 years, this is a good option for the majority. Operational cost projections should be a key element in school siting decisions.

Landsdowne is a walkable mixed use area that deserves schools too.  Co-location with middle school makes too much sense.  Very smart. 

eat cake at 10:04am sounds like Loudoun Estates residential developer wishing for a HS to spark their stalled market, or an irritated LCPS administrator/ Hatrick clone on the SB because their pro-development plans were subjgated.  I’m betting they are also mad about new smaller footprint model - heaven forbid…this will make it harder to justify buying 100+acre lots from Greenvest, Cangiano and the like

Oh to have seen the SB shifting into their streamlining stride last night!  Way to go on cutting 28 new admin positions!  The only “dismantling” will be King Hatrick’s court.

A lawsuit appears to be in the works so say goodbye to the timeline.  That lawsuit further proves that is not a good site selection.  And never mind the lien against the property that must be resolved too!

There is opposition to this school, but that does not matter.  Lansdowne may get their private public high school for their 500 kids who will attend there but do not lose sight of the fact it will be the most expensive school in Loudoun County history, exceeding $100 Million.  It is a bad deal for taxpayers.  $750,000 per acre, twice the market rate, and that is a good deal because Lansdowne needs their own highschool?

Sounds like an expensive school…but it will be needed. Places that serve alcohol nearby are not unusual…look at County & Valley. 
I do find it hard to believe that the people that will be living near this school, approve of it.  They are ok with the lights, noise & traffic it will bring???  I hope they thought that thru before they start complaining after the fact.

SChools are supposed to go in neighborhoods. That’s a Comp Plan Policy that’s long been there, and been used to DEFEAT schools like the Wheatlands site in the west, because it wasn’t exactly in/adjacent an existing town or village and certainly not a neighborhood.

Is the to-be-built HS in Loudoun Valley Estates going to be a “private” LCPS schoool? Is Briarwoods a “private” school for Brambleton? How about all the schools in the Town of LEesburg - are those “private” schools? How about the ES’s in Lucketts, Lincoln, and Middleburg? Boutique schools?

Shut the you know what up w/ inane statements like that.

Scott York does nothing and claims he did something!  What really changed in the extension by three weeks?  Did the county do anything “more” in the due diligence period other then delay the decision?  NO!  They did nothing more to further review this site.  It really is simply a lie by Scott York that they did more.  The public in Loudoun County is tired of being lied to by Scott York.  This is a part of his larger TARP program to bail out faltering properties at the tax payers expense.  Scott York is leading this county down the toilet.

“By taking no action on the National Conference Center site purchased for a new high school in Lansdowne, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday effectively advanced plans to locate the school at the controversial NCC site.”  Wow what a great board of supervisors.  Instead of taking a side and making a decision to which they would be held responsible for they decide, in true political fashion, to do nothing. Then they can claim it wasn’t their decision and blame others.  And we wonder why America is failing. It is the lack of leadership from our politicians and elected officials, who are not willing to make any difficult decisions that has put this country in the financial mess we are in. Now we have a new Loudoun County BOS that is just more of the same. Thank you BOS for doing absolutely nothing, now we know what to expect from you for the remaining term nothing!!!

Sounds like this fiscally conservative Board did their job.  They weighed all the options, listened to community support, and in the end choose the least expensive property.  They just saved the taxpayers $6M on land plus $1.5 annually in transportation!

The boundary for this new Ashburn HS will include students from Lansdowne, who are temporarily housed in Leesburg schools(which are soon to be overcrowded), and students from Ashburn Village.
River Creek kids go to Heritage.  So get your facts straight and stop with the generalizations about the wealthy perception of Lansdowne.  I live in Lansdowne in a small single family home assessed at $527K.  I do not have a golf membership or a BMW. I am not any different from the average demographics in other areas of Loudoun.  My kids will walk to the new HS because I cannot afford to buy them their own car.

You might as well call it Lansdowne High School, because the only kids going to that school will be the folks in Lansdowne and maybe River Creek. Make room for all the student BMWs in the parking lot. Likely to out number the teacher’s Hondas.

This is awesome and the right thing to do!

Scott York has long ago decided that this is what he wants.  A $100 Million school for Lansdowne.  Perhaps it is Quid pro Quo.  No other high school effort has spent the funds to figure out how to shoe horn a school into a site like has been done for HS-8 and NCC.  None, that is a fact.

Lansdowne is getting their own public private high school, and greater Loudoun County should be outraged, especially Loudoun Estates, as their needs were subjugated to those of Lansdowne.

“If you don’t like their decisions and leadership, take it to the ballot box.”

I agree.  One of the reasons I voted for this board was that I thought the previous board made a big mistake by moving forward with this ridiculously expensive high school when there were much cheaper alternatives.  I thought this supposedly fiscally responsible board would have the sense not to pay over $800,000 per developable acre, but I guess I was wrong!

Supervisors are elected to lead and make difficult decisions. If you don’t like their decisions and leadership, take it to the ballot box. Until, let them do their job.  Bunch of cry baby NIMBY’s in Lansdowne.

The Board does care.  That’s why they’re moving forward.  They’ve been listening to the public for YEARS, who have been begging for a solution to the overcrowding and boundary shifting. And while there is opposition from some residents, many other Lansdowne residents who live close to this site have overwhelmingly, actively supported HS-8 at the NCC.

Thank you, Board of Supervisors, for taking real action to solve a problem that concerns and impacts thousands of families, and more families to come, throughout Loudoun.

The board also didn’t care what the people of Round Hill wanted.  They all spoke against the sheriff station, but they’re getting it anyway.  Why bother to speak to the board when they don’t listen or care? http://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/suzanne-volpe-still-the-most-important-politician-in-loudoun/

The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan.

- Ronald Reagan

Taking care of their boy Kurt Krause I see.

This article implies that there is no support for the NCC site for HS-8, when in fact, a balanced and fair article would mention that large groups of vocal supporters of HS-8 at the NCC site from Lansdowne and Ashburn have been attending public input sessions for more than a year.