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SIERRA VISTA — The Planning and Zoning Commission tabled a conditional-use permit for a charter school Tuesday, just in case recommendation of it to the City Council might have led to an inadvertent impact on two church congregations who already meet at the proposed location.
A handful of residential neighbors in the Foothills Drive/El Camino Real area also told commissioners, that though they were not wholly averse to the permit being granted for the Berean Academy Charter School at El Camino Real and Calle Gardenia, they would prefer to see certain privacy and noise buffers, traffic mitigation and easement and floodwater resolution.
Such a conditional-use permit must get a commission vote before arriving in the council’s hands. The two existing buildings on the approximate 2.5-acre property, 1100 El Camino Real, comprise 8,300 square feet and 7,000 square feet, respectively. The school envisioned would consist of a student body of 150 of both middle-school and high school-age students.
Oasis Foursquare Church Pastor and Berean Academy Director Jim Fogarty said he supported the tabling of the permit so as not to imperil the ability of the two fellow congregations that meet at the location weekly.
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Commissioner Joe Kraps brought up the potential conflict, noting that an existing conditional-use permit for the property would probably be nullified by approval of the new one for the Berean school’s use of the property. So, that could be interpreted as in conflict with the ongoing, current church use of the property, Kraps said.
The proposed permit could not simply be amended at Tuesday’s regular commission meeting, because the permit was not advertised as a church-and-school permit, rather it was advertised only as a school permit, said Jeff Pregler of the city planning staff.
Village Meadows and New Jerusalem are the congregations that currently have a Sunday meeting at the location.
Village Meadows Baptist Church Administrator Gale Trow agreed that when he gave support of the conditional-use permit, he had not intended to potentially give permission to preclude the congregations from holding Sunday meeting there, so he was amenable to the item being tabled.
Trow told the neighbors of the area that he wants to remain a good neighbor, and not having realized the congregations’ parking had become a nuisance, Trow said he would work on church-goers’ parking habits.
Also Tuesday, a unanimous recommendation to the council for a high-density residential rezoning was presaged by a resident who spoke to the commission about water before the old business commenced.
The commission recommended a rezone of about 2.3 acres at the southeast corner of Seventh and Tacoma streets, from commercial to high-density commercial.
Tuesday night’s was the second of two public meetings for the Renaissance Place proposal, the process of which had gathered a few of the usual complaints about potential negative impact of the development on traffic and parking.
No one spoke regarding the rezone recommendation during the call to the public during the particular rezoning agenda item Tuesday.
The proposed plan is for Renee Farkas and Farkas Brothers to develop the Renaissance Place town homes, which will hold about 46 people and would use an estimate of 6,900 gallons of water per day total.
That water use amounts to about 7.7 acre-feet per year.
One acre-foot is the volume of water necessary to cover one acre of surface area to a depth of one foot. It’s approximately 325,851 U.S. gallons.
Before the commission reached the agenda items, local resident Jim Horton suggested that while the per capita-water use number reportedly decreases as a result of the rezoning of high-density residential development, the total-water use nevertheless increases.
Horton suggested to the commission that when it recommends such rezoning to the council, it should specifically point out to the council that it has recommended it to vote in favor of more overall water use out of the Sierra Vista Subwatershed.
Reporter Gentry Braswell can be reached at 515-4680.
