Aberdeen city and county school officials have an unusual plan to ease overcrowding at Aberdeen High School, and it involves a private developer paying to build a wing onto the school in exchange for a favorable zoning decision.
“We?re working with a developer. The developer has made a verbal commitment to donate $4 million to $6 million dollars to build another wing onto Aberdeen High School,” said Aberdeen City Council President Ron Kupferman.
“To our knowledge, the private sector has never been involvedin building a school. It?s a precedent,” he added.
“We?ve had some informal discussions” about how to relieve the overcrowding, said Harford County Public Schools Superintendent Jackie Haas. But she would not elaborate.
The plan is the result of negotiations between Aberdeen Mayor S. Fred Simmons and developer Samuel Smedley, according to Kupferman, but there are still several hoops to clear before the plan is finalized.
Smedley owns about 700 acres of land outside Aberdeen. He is interested in having his land annexed into Aberdeen so that he can develop the land, which is currently zoned agricultural, Kupferman said. That could also benefit the city.
“Aberdeen is the epicenter of BRAC, and if we don?t have the land that we need to provide the housing that we need, people are going to go elsewhere. People want to live close to where they work, and from an economic development standpoint, Aberdeen wants those people to add to its tax base,” Kupferman said.
The catch comes in that Smedley cannot begin to develop his property until capacity at Aberdeen High School meets adequate public facilities laws, Kupferman said.
Neither Simmons nor Smedley could be reached for comment.
