Benoit Expresses Concern About Two Rivers Plan

Anne Arundel County Council member Jamie Benoit (D-District 4) said he has some concerns about a , particularly its planned location several miles to the north of the community.

Koch Homes and Classic Communities Corp. To accommodate students from the development, they have offered to pay for an elementary school.

But current plans call for the school to be located as many as seven miles outside of the Two Rivers development, which Benoit said would be unusual.

“I’ve never seen that,” he said. “It would be the first time, to my knowledge, that we built a school that far away from the community it serves. You use your schools for going to PTA meetings, going to the 5th-grade play…I’ve never heard of building a school that far from your community.”

The developers on July 11 presented their concept plan for the school to the Anne Arundel County Board of Education. The board did not vote on the plan, but could review it again at its Aug. 22 meeting.

The plans for the school have come after the developers of Two Rivers decided to open up the community to all ages rather than make it a community for those 55 and over. School board and community sources said they did so with the blessing of the Forks of the Patuxent Improvement Association, but only in exchange for a promise to place the school further north.

[Editor's Note: We heard from Sue Meyer, President of th Forks of the Patuxent Improvement Association, who disputed that the group has struck such an agreement with the Two Rivers developers.

"The Forks of the Patuxent Improvement Association has a recorded covenant agreement with the Two Rivers investors at this time for an age restricted 55+ community," Meyer wrote in an email to Patch. "Although discussions are ongoing with Two Rivers, there have been no committments to change this agreement."]

Meanwhile, residents of Piney Orchard have expressed concern over the proposal, especially plans to extend Evergreen Road north into their community. Current plans call for the road to extend up to Strawberry Lake Way, possibly taking away a portion of GORC Park.

Benoit said Piney Orchard residents have a right to be concerned.

“It’s got some problems,” he said. “The people in Piney Orchard who don’t want the road to be punched through, they’ve got some legitimate concerns. I don’t know how traffic would work, where you have a lot of buses from school A, and they have to go through the traffic of School B at Piney Orchard Elementary School.”

Benoit said that ultimately, the school board would have to decide the best course of action.

“If the community is willing to support lifting the age restriction on the development, the kids are going to have to go to school somewhere,” he said. “It’s a bit of a Hobson’s choice, I guess. The board is going to have to figure out how to deal with it.”