Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of the site where Liberty Academy officials have signed an intent to lease document at 1460 Jackson St. in Columbus, Ind., pictured on Monday, Feb. 20, 2023.
A new private, “classical” school will have to continue its search for a location, as its proposed site has been rejected by zoning officials.
The Columbus Board of Zoning Appeals voted Tuesday to deny two variance requests from Liberty Academy of Columbus for property at 1460 Jackson St. School leaders sought variances to allow a school in the Industrial: General zoning district and to allow the school to be located in a “Special Flood Hazard Area.” Both votes were 4-1, with board member Charles Doup dissenting.
Doup initially made a motion to approve the first variance request, regarding the zoning district. It failed for lack of a second. Board member Michael Kinder, in his motions to deny each request, cited the planning department’s staff report, which recommended denial due to concerns about traffic and flooding safety.
Following the board’s decision, Victor “JR” Huff, head of Liberty Academy, said school leaders will keep searching for a property that meets their needs.
“We’ve got a couple of other sites that we are working with,” he said.
However, he noted in his presentation to the board that school leaders have been looking for the right property for close to a year, and there have been very few available sites that are the size they’re looking for — as well as competition from other interested parties with uses that also cater to children and families.
Liberty Academy plans to open Aug. 15, and 21 students were enrolled as of Feb. 17, according to a recent newsletter. The school’s website states that while Liberty’s “ultimate goal” is to offer grades K-12, school officials expect to open with K-7 “in order to cultivate the culture necessary for a proper classical education.”
According to the planning department’s staff report, Liberty has a target of 80 students by year one and up to 110 by year three. The school expects to employ 10 faculty members in its first year and expand to 15-20 employees by its fifth year.
The site of 1460 Jackson St. was intended to be a temporary launch location, with the school being located there for its first couple of years, said Huff.
The owner of the site is the James L. Puckett Revocable Trust. According to planning staff, an office/warehouse building is located on the approximately 1.4-acre-site.
Huff wrote in a letter to the board of zoning appeals that the presence of a school at the property would not cause any major disruptions to neighboring facilities, with pick-up and drop-off being contained to the parking lot and side drive areas. He also provided a flood evacuation plan and said that there were grounds to grant a floodplain variance because there are other schools in Columbus that “sit in flood zones similar to the property at Jackson St.”
However, planning staff wrote in their report that only a limited portion of these properties are located in mapped floodplains, and none of the school structures are located in the floodplain. Additionally, all of the schools in question have street access that would remain flood-free up to a 500-year flood event.
The planning department said the building at 1460 Jackson St. has flooding hazards including floodway, 100-year floodplain and 500-year floodplain. Critical facilities, including schools pre-school through 12th grade, are generally prohibited from locating in 100- or 500-year floodplains. The same is true of access driveways that serve critical facilities.
The majority of the subject property is located in the floodplain, including the building and access drive.
Huff told the board that the building’s finished floor elevation is 625.5 feet — just a hair less than the minimum required flood protection grade in this area, which is 625.7 feet according to planning staff.
“I think the practical takeaway from that is that you would expect in most 100-year flood events, as we currently understand them, that the interior of the building would be flood-free,” said City/County Planning Director Jeff Bergman. “It would be dry. But it might have flood water all around it.”
In regards to the industrial variance, staff from both the planning and engineering departments have expressed skepticism about whether the site could accommodate drop-off and pick-up without backing up traffic on Jackson Street.
Huff said that he has observed the site to be a “low traffic area” and presented the school’s plan for pickup at the site, as well additional solutions they could employ to help with traffic, such as staggering pickup times.
During the time for public comment, the board heard from a few different individuals, with some supporting the variance requests and others recommending denial.
Arguments in support of the requests included the area is not as industrial as it used to be, that changes to the site will be minimal, that there is a need for the school, and that the school needs an initial launch site. Some also echoed Huff’s statements about issues with supply and demand of appropriate properties.
Columbus Plan Commission member Evan Kleinhenz, who is also an alternate for the board of zoning appeals, was among those who spoke in favor of the request, saying that he plans to send his own children to Liberty and would not be concerned about their safety at this location.
However, other individuals voiced concerns about traffic, flooding, the proximity of a nearby railroad and how locating school at the site could affect other businesses who want to move into the area.
Additionally, Kerri Sinibaldi, who wrote a letter urging the board to deny requests, claimed that there are two sex offenders located within a quarter mile of the proposed school location. An offender search with the Bartholomew County sheriff’s office shows one work address for a sexually violent predator within a quarter-mile radius of the site. The half-mile radius also includes a work address for a sex offender and a home address for an offender against children.
City Councilman-at-large Tom Dell said that while he understands the school’s desire for a launch site, he has concerns about the flooding issue and thinks it makes more sense for them to find a viable long-term location.
“I would think it would be more beneficial for you to look for the long-term of a facility and a property that would give you opportunities to grow and develop as your school grows and develops, rather than one just to have it start and then move someplace else for it to grow,” he said. “I always like to see schools stay in one particular area and develop for not only the community, but the community around that area to really make it thrive and to be more successful.”
In response to this, Michael Clark, an architectural engineer with Dunlap and Company that has worked with the school, said that looking for this kind of long-term location is “a hardship for a school trying to get started.”
“You can’t invest millions of dollars in the property to expand yourself to a large capacity,” he said. “I think they’ve got to find a place to get started in order to grow their students, in order to afford that larger school that they’re going to need at some point down the road.”
Prior to his motion to approve, Doup noted the school’s proximity to residential properties and its intention to serve nearby low-income families.
“The Comprehensive Plan, while it doesn’t necessarily encourage it, it does include educational facilities, recreational facilities and civic, all in that area,” he added. “Which, frankly, they’re all there now, other than the school.”
In his motion to approve the industrial variance, Doup stated that Liberty had demonstrated that the approval would not have a negative impact on the community or surrounding properties, that the need for the variance resulted from a condition peculiar to the property, and that strict application of the zoning ordinance would pose an unnecessary hardship.
However, Kinder said in his own motion that he believed these same standards had not been met. He added in his motion to deny the second variance that the school had also failed to meet sufficient criteria in regards to its request to locate in a floodplain.
