COMMUNITY ANALYSIS 4.1 The American Planning Association (APA)1 as well as the Maryland Department of Planning (MDP) encourages coordination among community planners and public school officials regarding future plans which ultimately affect the utilization and capacity of schools. It is critically important to integrate school planning with community planning when locating new or addressing existing public schools, which are significant to the vitality of our local community. Schools are by nature a community centered place which plays an important part in community development. Within Wicomico County, coordination between the County, City of Salisbury, and the seven (7) other municipalities and the public school system is becoming more essential if public schools are to adequately support the needs of specific school attendance areas. The challenge that Wicomico County Public Schools (WCPS) faces is the ability to integrate sound school planning strategies with the realities of our local fiscal constraints. It is imperative that our public schools be an integral part of the planning efforts by both the County and the local municipalities. WCPS looks forward to and appreciates increased inter-jurisdictional coordination between Wicomico County, the City of Salisbury, and the other seven (7) municipalities to further enhance all local planning efforts. WCPS welcomes the opportunity to provide information to both the county and municipalities through our Educational Facilities Master Plan (EFMP) at a minimum. Some of the information or indicators that are available for use regarding educational facility planning are documented subdivision activity, census demographic indicators, public utility plans and designated growth areas. SUBDIVISION ACTIVITY The majority of the data presented within this section represents the development activity historically tracked by the Wicomico County Department of Planning, Zoning, and Community Development. Wicomico County shares sketch plats as part of their review process per Article II, Section 200-6 of the County Code. This Sketch Plat procedure requires the Planning Director to forward copies of sketch plats to WCPS for review. Within the last school year, only one (1) sketch plat was submitted which could potentially result in 27 new single-family residential units. As the largest municipality within Wicomico County, WCPS has worked cooperatively with the City of Salisbury Infrastructure and Development Department to gain a better understanding of the development activity within the City and is now routinely involved in the review process as noted later in this section. Section 4.4 (City of Salisbury: Residential Development) identifies the most recent Salisbury activity report. WCPS has reached out and other local municipalities do not track subdivision activity in a quantifiable manner to analyze but we have included what we gathered in Section 4.5 (Small Municipal Residential Development). Currently there is not a mechanism in place requiring the local municipalities to report their subdivision activity. 1 See the APA’s website for more information: https://www.planning.org/ 105
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