Upcoming Hearing on Proposed 40,000 SF Addition to South Lakes High School

The first item on the Fairfax County Planning Commission's agenda for its October 15, 2015, meeting at 8:15PM at the Fairfax County Government Center auditorium is a proposed 40,000SF addition to South Lakes High School.

The construction of the addition would result in a total gross floor area of 373,750 square feet.  The purpose of the addition is to provide additional classroom to increase the capacity of the existing school from 2,126 students to 2,500 students.  Along with the building addition, the School Board proposes the addition of 128 parking spaces raising the total number of spaces to 758.  In addition, the Board proposes to modify stormwater management by installing open joint pavement blocks and five filterras.  The School Board also proposes waiving transitional screening requirements on the west, north, and east sides of the school. 

The high school clearly needs additional capacity to handle the number of students as the large number of modular schoolrooms there highlights.  At the same time, there may be concerns about:

• Additional traffic, especially during the morning rush hour, as students and faculty attempt to enter the school's parking areas.
• Stormwater issues, which have been a decades-long problem for neighbors east and south of the school, just partially corrected north of South Lakes Drive this year.
• Waiving of screening requirements will create an additional noise issue for residential areas east and west of the school.

If you wish to speak at the hearing, the instructions for registering and speaking are available here under "Meeting Information."

Here a perspective drawing and an annotated overview plan of the proposal. 

The full 54-page proposal is available here for review.