By Ray Gronberg
gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648
DURHAM -- A unanimous Board of Adjustment on Wednesday gave the Durham Public Schools permission to convert most of the Lakewood YMCA into a 300-student Montessori middle school.
But the meeting yielded mixed results for the school system because the board, after hearing testimony on a different application, postponed until Jan. 26 a decision on whether to allow DPS to reconfigure the northernmost of the driveways that link Jordan High School to Garrett Road.
The Lakewood approval came after officials signaled that the system had addressed demands for design changes from the N.C. Department of Transportation and the city Stormwater Services Division.
Adjustment board members indicated that they were a bit uneasy that the application reached the agenda while agreement on those issues was still pending.
"Typically, we don't get these cases until [the staff memo summarizing the application] says, 'Complies with the ordinance, no comment," said board member David Neill, a city appointee.
But they also acknowledged that the conversion has attracted widespread support. "This is an exciting project for the community," Neill said.
The system's plan is to take 53,030 of the Chapel Hill Road building's 71,278 square feet for the new middle school, with the YMCA continuing to use the rest.
The project grew out of a deal brokered by elected officials, in response to lobbying from residents of the Lakewood neighborhood who were worried that the YMCA would close.
DPS officials haven't decided whether the new school will operate on a traditional or year-round calendar, although the system's other Montessori schools operate on a traditional calendar, said Tim Carr, DPS director of construction and capital planning.
The holdup with DOT involved its request for more space in the building's parking lot for cars to line up. A DOT engineer said last week that the agency had signed off on the plan.
City/County Planning Department Senior Planner Michael Stock told the board that compliance with DOT's request was mandatory.
The stormwater issues by definition involve drainage. The landscape architect DPS hired to work on the project, Chuck Smith, said the system would cut down some trees on the site to add a pond to comply with city requirements.
The only condition the board added to the permit was a request that DPS hire off-duty police officers to help direct traffic entering and leaving the school during the morning and afternoon. Smith indicated that the system had intended to do that anyway.
Meanwhile, the postponement of the Jordan High application came after a DPS-hired landscape architect, Dan Jewell, conceded the system's plan for the driveway would be "substantially injurious" to adjoining private property. By law, the board can't approve a permit that would reduce a lot's value.
The system is proposing to widen what is now a gravel driveway the northern edge of the Jordan campus to three lanes, add parking and a bus drop-off on campus, and add crosswalks and turn lanes to Garrett Road.
The problem comes because DOT wants the school system to build a right-turn lane that would allow southbound traffic on Garrett Road to get out of the main flow of traffic before using the driveway.
Complying with the agency's demand means acquiring part of an adjoining home lot at the corner of Garrett and King Charles roads that that belongs to Josefa King. Jewell said the system wants to negotiate a fair settlement with the owner, or convince DOT to back off the demand for a turn lane.
But King told the board she's been dealing with a family health problem and only recently learned the system wants part of her property. Board members agreed a postponement would give the two sides time to try working something out.
Traffic around the school has been a sore spot for some time.
In 2006 a local man called the issue to the attention of elected officials by posting videos on YouTube that showed students jaywalking in traffic after being dropped off on Garrett Road. A lack of crosswalks was said to be a contributing factor.
