As mentioned on our “Accomplishments” Page, school capacity discussions are now built into the process for residential developments. This in of itself has been a huge step forward, as the Town Council now is able to consider real data from the school system and make appropriate decisions based on that; be it a denial, delay to the future to allow capacity to catch up, or a possible conversion to a 55+ or commercial use.
I put this here in my on going platform to stress how vital this topic needs to be now and going forward as Apex continues to consider residential developments. It took a long long time for Apex to build itself into a corner, a problem then made worse by the state’s decision to limit school capacity for elementary schools – the so call “class sized chaos” of 2017 – which, while well intended, had the practical effect of bulldozing an entire elementary school in Apex from a capacity perspective and providing no money for additional teachers or schools needed to handle it.
At the current moment, thanks to the collective efforts of WCPSS and Apex, there are multiple schools either under construction, in design and in the plan, or land banked for the future which together will help address the capacity crisis. But we still need to be diligent and insure that going forward any future residential growth matches up with the WCPSS building plan. And we have to be on the look out for additional curve balls from the state, like a proposal this year to further limit class sizes, and adjust appropriately.
This situation is another motivating factor for my proposal to pivot the land use map towards commercial.
VISION OF THE PEAK 