The Harford Lutheran School Issues

The Lutheran School applicants for a special exception to allow the building of a 300-500 student school at the Millstad site at 701 Whitaker Mill Road, have tried to paint their request in a positive light: minimum impact on the community, the water table, and the environment; and ignoring traffic safety issues including presenting the concept of a roundabout at the entrance to the site in a positive light.  However, in each case, the real impacts will be negative and severe.  The issues are clear: Impact of teenage drivers on safety on Whitaker Mill Road; Effectiveness of a roundabout at the Millstad entrance; Impact of the school water usage on the water table; Impact on the rural nature of the Whitaker Mill Road community and its environment.  Analysis of these issues show beyond reasonable doubt, that the Millstad site is a fundamentally inappropriate location for a school of the type in question, and that the negative impacts are far worse in this location than they would be at any similar site in Harford County.

Each of the basic issues with the HLS being located on Whitaker Mill Road are discussed on the following pages:

    Testimony given at the HLS Hearings

Excerpted Discussions

    Traffic Safety Issues (Joe Lacetera)

    Traffic Data Analysis (Bob Bruce)

    Impact of the school water usage on the water table

    Impact on the rural nature of the Whitaker Mill Road community and its environment

All parents seek a good education for their children, but this is clearly independent of the physical location of the school. Since their intent is to draw students from all of Harford County and beyond, this would in no sense be a neighborhood school. So, we find it hard to understand how these people who have no real ties to this community would insist on this disruptive and destructive act of forcing the school on a community that does not want its presence. This kind of careless development must stop. The sensible choice is to situate the school in an accommodating environment, rather than seek to destroy a beautiful, rural, residential community. The school should find an appropriate site near a large, safe, feeder road with public water and sewage facilities in place suitable for a population of 300-plus students, teachers and administrators. The county should not ignore the master plan for this exception.

We have the right to maintain the rural nature of our community, and we want county officials to understand that we do not want Whitaker Mill Road to undergo major alterations to support the heavy traffic that comes with an unwanted development.