Volusia's no-school zone

Across Florida, school districts and counties are working - sometimes struggling - to craft rules that would more closely tie home development to the availability of school seats for the students that would move into the new homes.

Along the way, districts have battled over which government will pay for road improvements to the new schools. There's a lawsuit in Hillsborough over that issue. They've tried to establish acceptable levels of service - essentially the amount of crowding over capacity. And more.

But none have gone as far as Volusia County, which has proposed a "no school zone" that covers 300 square miles of mostly forest and swamps in the center of the county. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the state is not keen on the concept, which doesn't seem to be allowed in law.

County officials, however, want to keep developers out of the conservation area, which has limited infrastructure. The zone also will keep more densely built neighboring areas from "borrowing" capacity from it, as allowed by the law. The borrowing provision could mean extra busing across the county for students.

This one looks to become a showdown. "We're trying to protect the center of the county, which is a conservation corridor," Volusia County Chairman Frank Bruno told the Sentinel. "We're not going to back down to the state on this one."

The results will have reverberations statewide. Stay tuned.

Comments

[Dave W]

This seems to a unique and creative way to conserve valuable land. There is no shortage of development in Florida; 300 square miles is a pittance and there shouldn't be much fuss over this. However, the legal issue is an important one, and perhaps a state lawmaker should propose that each county should be able to create limited amounts of "no school zones." I like this idea, but it does need some legal refinement.