The long-simmering proposal to construct a Montessori School on Locust Street hit another road block Monday night.
At the June 23 Planning Commission work session, the town staff, citing neighborhood traffic concerns, recommended the commission deny the application at the upcoming July 7 public hearing.
According to the report, the staff recommended the denial "based upon concerns over the amount of traffic being generated by the proposed use and potential conflicts with surrounding uses."
One of those uses is Paula Fletcher's front yard. Fletcher lives directly across from the proposed school which would replace an existing but vacant home at 823 Locust St.
"I got home from two weeks of vacation and I saw the sign across the street," Fletcher said, referring to the town's advertised public hearing sign. "I thought this issue had been put to bed. We were all excited thinking it had been killed."
Fletcher has lived in her single-family home complete with wrap-around porch for two-and-a-half years. The thought of watching a school with up to 120 students go up across the street was almost too much to bear. "Locust Street already has a church, a day-care center, a condo, the International Apartments, not to mention the middle school," she said. "It's just packed and the traffic is super busy."
Tim Redmond, owner of the proposed Community Montessori School, says that Fletcher is the exception rather than the rule. Most of the neighbors, he says, are fine with the plan and he has the petition to prove it.
For the last eight years, Redmond has run his 40-child private school in the basement of the Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal on the corner of Locust and Spring streets. He was only supposed to be there for one year, two years maximum, he said.
"A new permanent site would give us the opportunity to have a clean spacious property, something the current site doesn't allow," Redmond said.
The site is situated next to the seven-unit Salem Village condominium complex which is located next to the Children's World Day Care. Former Salem Village resident Pat Voltmer was disappointed to hear that the Montessori school was "rearing its ugly head, again."
Voltmer said she left her modest loft-style condominium in part because she feared a school would be placed on the neighboring site. She was also fed up with problems she said she encountered during her 14 years living next to the day-care center. "Wedging Salem Village between two commercial developments will not have a positive effect on the property values," Voltmer said in testimony to the commission back in March. "Does anyone think it was a coincidence that the three remaining original owners of Salem Village units, aware of this proposed redevelopment, each sold their condominiums in the last quarter of 2002?"
WITH THIS LATEST recommendation for rejection, Redmond is forced to begin looking for other alternatives. "I've now lost my deposit — $40,000 is down the drain," he said. "My only hope is to move out of the town."
The Locust Street site was originally one of five or six sites that the office of Community Development suggested to him that might be able to handle his proposed school. Redmond had the site surveyed and he hired an architect. The current plan calls for a 5,000-square-foot private school for up to 120 students, two parcels down from the Herndon Middle School. Two months ago, town staff spurned Redmond's advances and told him to alter his drop-off configuration, which he did. In fact, zoning administrator Elizabeth Gilleran praised the applicant's reconfiguration as a "major improvement" over the original design. "He did a pretty good job," she said at Monday's meeting. "We are still very concerned about use and traffic impact."
Gilleran did tell the commission that Redmond had assured staff that the hours of pick up and drop off for the Montessori school and the middle school would be different. Gilleran also confirmed that her office had not received any complaints from neighbors about the Children's World Day Care in five years. Noise was still a concern, however, given the "relatively small" site for the 5,000-square-foot building.
Given some of the neighbor's stated concerns about the day-care center, Redmond said he expected "a little opposition," but he says he was taken aback by the town's negative recommendation. "We are not a day-care center," Redmond said. "You won't see kids running and screaming through our halls playing cowboys and Indians. Unfortunately, no one wants to hear that."
Carol Bruce, the vice mayor who lives on Locust Street, also has concerns about the size of the project and the potential implications increased traffic could have on her street. "I am just really concerned about the traffic implications."
Redmond said he was willing to do anything to keep "this small business in this small town." Redmond isn't even sure that he will be there at the July 7 planning commission public hearing because he feels it is a fait accompli. "The town is running a small business out of town for a silly reason."
The Town of Herndon Planning Commission will discuss the application for a conditional-use permit for the proposed Montessori School on Locust Street at a July 7 public hearing, at 7:30 p.m., in the Town Council chambers.