DATE: Wednesday, October 15, 1997           TAG: 9710150474

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY YOUNG, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   71 lines

CHESAPEAKE SCHOOL BOARD DROPS SUNRAY AS PROPOSED SCHOOL SITE

There will be no middle school in Sunray.

The School Board voted Monday to rescind its offer to buy land in the area, a historic Polish farming community on the border between Bowers Hill and Western Branch.

Community sentiment against the Sunray site and the renewed possibility that another site - long promised to the city as part of a 1989 development deal - would become available soon drove the board's decision, said Barbara B. Head, School Board chairwoman.

The School Board was ``definitely listening to us,'' said Toni Fogel, a parent of two children. ``If they weren't, they'd be building on the Sunray site right now.''

Fogel and several other Western Branch residents packed public hearings recently to express their concerns about the site. They argued that it was not centrally located and was riddled with safety concerns, including its location in an area zoned for industrial use. They said it would be worth a delay to find a better site.

A delay is what they'll have, said L. Thomas Bray, the one board member to vote against revoking the Sunray offer.

``We promised those people we'd open a school up on time and now we're not going to open up the school on time,'' said Bray.

The district had hoped to open the new middle school by the year 2000, to alleviate serious crowding at Western Branch Middle School. The board's action will delay the opening at least another year, depending on when new land becomes available.

Bray added that the delay may also cost the district money because it had hoped to build the Western Branch school at the same time it was building an identically designed middle school in Greenbrier. The simultaneous projects may have saved in construction costs.

Not all Western Branch residents thought finding a new site was worth the wait.

``They don't care where the building is built at, they understand there's a need for a school now,'' said Jim Trautz, a father of six who said he has talked with several Western Branch residents. He believes crowding at the middle school has led to an increase in student fights.

Head said the district would not have even considered the Sunray site if the long-promised land in Bailey's Mead had come through earlier.

``If we had had the proffers earlier, we would be on time for both schools (Greenbrier and Western Branch),'' Head said.

The new proposed site, off what will be a new extension of Dock Landing Road, is not yet a ``done deal,'' but it's close, said C. Raeford Eure, president of Hoggard/Eure Associates and agent for developing the land. He said site plans for the development have been given to the Planning Commission and, if all goes as scheduled, the City Council will make a decision in January.

Eure said the plans include space for a public elementary school, a private school, single and multi-family housing and about 70 acres of commercial development - including a shopping center across the street from the middle school site.

The commercial zoning near the school doesn't thrill Fogel or Trautz, but Fogel said it is better than the industrial zoning near the Sunray site.

Perhaps those happiest with the School Board's decision to revoke the Sunray offer are the landowners themselves, Alexander and Stephanie Jozwiak. The elderly couple had been living under the threat of having their land condemned under the rules of eminent domain. The land had been in their family since the turn of the century, and they had no interest in selling, said their lawyer, Edward Bourdan.

``They're very pleased. They're not ecstatic because they've had to spend a lot of money keeping the School Board at bay,'' Bourdan said. ``But they're pleased. That's what they wanted all along. Their only goal was to keep the land.'' ILLUSTRATION: Map

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