 If participating by phone while also streaming the meeting on a computer please mute the audio on your computer and only use the phone audio so as to avoid issues when being patched into the meeting to speak. There's a large audio delay between the live recording on City TV and publicinput.com. We will be pausing at certain times to allow the audio to catch up and give citizens time to submit any comments. Moving on to the roll call. Mr. Dinkins. Mr. Gregory. Mr. Primus. Ms. Fenner. Here. Mr. Gignard. Here. Ms. McIntosh. Here. And Mr. Duvall. Okay applicants with requests before the board of zoning appeals for a lot of the presentation time of ten minutes, this time should include but is not limited to an overview of the project, case history, and any pertinent meetings held regarding the request. This time also includes all persons presenting information on behalf of the applicants such as attorneys, engineers, and architects. This time limit does not include any questions asked by the board of zoning appeals or staff regarding the request. Any member of the general public may address the board in intervals of three minutes or five minutes if by a spokesperson for an established body or for a group of three or more. The applicant will then have five minutes for a buttle. The board reserves the right to amend these procedures on a case by case basis. All right. Those of you who plan to speak today must be sworn. So if you are here as an applicant or here to speak in any case, please stand at this time and raise your right hand. Do you have found or test that the testimony you will give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? Moving on to the consent agenda. The board uses the consent agenda to approve non-controversial or routine matters by a single motion and vote. If a member of the board or the general public wishes to discuss an item on the consent agenda, that item is removed and placed on the regular agenda. The board then approves the remaining consent agenda items. The first item on the consent agenda is the approval of the May 5th, 2022 meeting minutes. The next item is case 20220019 SE 902 Gervais Street, Suite C to request for a special exception to permit a type 2 eating and drinking establishment. The next item on the consent agenda is case 20220023 SE 2501 Harlem Street, special exception request to expand a place of worship. Does anyone wish to speak on a case which would remove the case from the consent agenda prior to the board vote? And at this time we'll pause to give time for the audio to catch up and citizens to submit comments. All good. Okay, we're getting ready to ask for a motion for the first two cases in one ballot. So if anyone is here to speak on these cases now is the time, if not, we'll proceed. All right, thank you. Can we get a motion for the consent agenda please? Move that we approve the consent agenda subject to staff comments. Seven. Okay, we have a motion to second all of the favor. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes. Thank you very much. Moving to the regular agenda. The following outline for regular agenda items. Staff will introduce. It's too late. It's too late. We'll move it on. Go ahead. Staff will introduce the case. Applicant will have 10 minutes to make a presentation. The board may ask questions. Public will be allowed to participate in person. By phone, comment or via voicemail or email. The applicant will have five minutes for rebuttal and the board will take action. The first item on regular agenda is case 20220021B105 Sparkman Drive. It's a variance request for the minimum parking standard for light industrial use. I believe the applicant is here to speak. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Frank Daugherty. I'm here on behalf of LDE LLC. And we are requesting a variance to the minimum parking requirement for our industrial project off of Sparkman Drive. This is a 38-acre development that we've got, I believe it's nine buildings planned. And so this specific request is in relation to the two, there's 105,000 square foot building and 91,000 square foot building towards the back of the park. And so we are trying to get a variance. The city ordinance requires 1.5 spaces per thousand square feet. And so we're asking for a variance on that. The user that we have lined up for the larger building, they only require 1,200 square feet of office space. And without sharing who they are, are only going to have four to five employees on a daily basis. So it just is a whole lot more feasible, economical and efficient for us to only put in 50 parking spaces for that side. And then we have 25 parking spaces proposed for the smaller building on the right. So I guess what we'd like a little more clarification is that this is such a significant decrease, and I know you're aware of it. I think the packet says 75% decrease, which is tremendous. Tell us a little bit more, and you may not want to state this specific user, but go into a little more detail about the employees, visitors. 50 spaces is still kind of a lot, and 25 is kind of a lot. Tell us a little bit more about how many spaces you actually think are going to be needed in support of your case for such a huge reduction. Yeah, absolutely. So the user that we have, so we have one user lined up so far for the larger building that we've taken about 75,000 feet of that building. And it's a light industrial use as opposed to like a typical manufacturing use like a factory that has many, many employees, which in our opinion is kind of the reason that the, that was the intent behind the 1.5 per thousand ordinance. So this specific user only has five people at the most on site. There's a lot of truck drivers that come on and off, but they're not staying there. And then we are going to have another 30,000 feet that we're in the process of trying to lease, and we feel that the 25 spaces we have at the top for them should be plenty. And then on the smaller 90,000 square foot building, we're still in the process of leasing there, but we do have some extra space just in case we do need to add more parking spaces down the road. But for kind of the feasibility of the entire site, it just made sense to kind of shrink the amount of parking here. Okay. Questions? When, if there is a different user, do you have the ability to expand? Say suppose the next tenant turns out to be a manufacturing, a typical manufacturing thing. Do you have the capacity to expand if you wanted to, if you needed to, or would you, what would you do? So a majority of this laid out yard is for that wash tenant that I just shared with you. And so we have discussed potentially converting that way down your art to extra parking if we needed to at some point. Hopefully we won't have to do that. We don't think, but things change. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you all. I'll bring in briefly, this is a large site, 38 acre site, and it's going to have quite a few buildings on it. So as you look at the criteria like we always do for variance for parking requirement ratio, don't know that they need all the criteria because without running through them, I don't think they do. But again, those are just the criteria that we normally go by. I think the last thing we want to do is force an applicant to build a huge parking lot that they don't need, you know, more runoff, less green space, wasted. So this is one of those cases where I think we just sort of look at the other criteria and kind of overrule the first couple of criteria that it doesn't meet because who rules that? I'll agree with Eugene. I mean, the fact that they have the opportunity to expand in the future is a big deal because as things change, I've been to plenty of manufacturing facilities where cars are stacked up on the road and there's not enough parking. So knowing that there's that ability I would hate to require that they build an unusable parking area at this point. Yeah, absolutely. And I'd argue that the extraordinary circumstances are all the runoff that we don't want to have. So how about that? Good point. I like it. Can we grant a special exception with a sort of caveat of like, should it be needed in the future or should it, you know, convenience? Like you were saying, if it backs up, if it grows and it backs up, then how do you say, well, you have to build parking? I think we certainly could, but in this particular case when you look at where it is and how far the buildings are. It's going to be easy. There's nowhere else to park. So if these particular users don't have the parking spaces, they're going to have to do something. I mean, they're not going to have people parking on the street. I mean, I hate to put another condition on them for something like this that's just sort of hypothetical. That's right. I mean, we could say provided that at such time as they should need them. But I mean, I think you're right. The market's going to take care of that. You're not going to be able to lease a space that doesn't have enough parking. The market's going to take care of that. So anything else anybody? Thank you. I'll cover it. All right. Let's ask for a motion. Move that we approve subject to staff comments. Second. Okay. All right. Any opposed? All right. Moving on to the next case. Case 2022 0023 SE. 631 635 639. Excuse me. Elmwood Avenue. This is a special exception request to establish an elementary middle or high school. I believe the applicant is here to present the request. Okay. With the applicant please approach. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Dr. Rod. Agent for Columbia School Development LLC. And I'm also the director of good at charter school. Our proposed project is. 639 Elmwood Avenue. Where we would establish a three to 12. Free public charter school. We will maintain our current location at 2015 Marion Street for primary learning center, which would be. 4k to 2. The most relevant issue to both. You all and the neighborhoods and surrounding areas traffic. So far we've done a phase two, a geo survey and also. A traffic survey that included 18 intersections. It's pretty expensive. I met with a CDO T the city engineers. We've met with the consulting firm that's working on the 126 bridge. As well as Arsenal Hill Elmwood Park and Earlwood neighborhoods to discuss the project. We believe that we are compatible with the development of the site. As far as traffic based on our traffic study. Only four intersections are impacted at all, even at peak use. And those are not. Intersections within the neighborhood. Those would be Calhoun at Wayne Wayne at Confederate. And hugie at Laurel. The current interest or the ingress and egress would be located underneath the 126 bridge. The engineers who are working to design that bridge are aware of our project. And have been working on a plan with us to create a four way stop underneath that intersection. Which I understand would be helpful for the neighborhood as well. The site, as you can see, goes all the way to Park Street. That would be used as an emergency entrance only with a. Black gate that emergency responders can use. That's just by design the way the site is laid out that that particular road goes there. That's not something that we're installing. We are planning. We do plan to. Allow the city to extend the greenway through the property as I understand. They would like to continue from underneath the 126 bridge all the way to Park Street. And we're willing to work with the city to do that as well. The site is actually 17 acres. So our and the way the site is laid out. We need about 2000 feet in order to maintain stacking. We actually have 3600 feet. So even during peak hours again our traffic is not going to impact anyone outside of the site. We intend to the mission of our school is global competency and green space is something that's important to us. We have an agricultural program. We've recently started athletics. So a large majority of this will remain green space that will utilize for those Kate programs and for our sports teams. Aside from that we have done a historical survey to ensure that the cemetery that was originally on the property has been parceled off by the city. That's the Douglas cemetery and no further. Cemetery or graves are located on that property. We intend to build the architecture to suit the neighborhood. We want to keep a buffer in between. Not just the neighborhood and us but also the neighborhood, the greenway and the school. So we've discussed with the neighborhood and the neighborhood council. In the same area of the different areas. We're going to move that to a smaller area. keep a buffer in between not just the neighborhood in us but also the neighborhood, the greenway and the school. So we've discussed with the neighborhood landscaping trees to sort of partition between those things as a safety measure for my school and also to create that buffer between the neighborhood. So far we've worked really hard at Marion Street to create a safer environment to create a welcoming environment and we've pledged to do the same with the neighborhood. We've been working with them to do so thus far. So if you guys have any questions for me. You mentioned a traffic study that wasn't included in our packet. Nice to see that or see some results. Since that's such a focal point of the discussion. Sure. I have a copy of it. I don't know how much that helps you write this second. But I do have a copy. According to the neighborhood was that we do town trials which we did do that indicate that it is actually not faster to cut through the neighborhoods. It's actually quicker to go bull street to Elmwood to old Elmwood or coming off of 126 to the west to go around to Wayne Street. So that is something that we worked with them. We've also talked about some other traffic calming measures that we were considering with the neighborhood based on the greenway and how the city determines where they want pedestrian entrances along the greenway as well. So it's a thousand and fifty students is what you're aiming for, right? Yeah, 925 at that site. The remainder of the students will remain at 2015 Marion. And then the main access is getting in under the bridge? Yes. Okay, so if you're coming, if you live not in the you know the local vicinity where you could walk, I mean I'm saying if you are coming in on 26 or off at Elmwood exactly how would you get in there and how would traffic kind of back up? Okay, so if you're coming off of 126 you're gonna come down to Wayne Street and you're gonna make a right and go excuse me Gadsden Street, right? Gadsden Street and then cut underneath the bridge which will be a four-way stop. There would be no left turn according to the city and the engineers who are working on the 126 bridge they actually intend to close off Gadsden Street to prevent the left that people try to take off of 126 which is clearly a terrible idea. So it would be a right that way. If you're coming the lizard stick it or whatever is there. And if you're coming in obviously from full street you would take Old Elmwood which is the slip ramp that services the Old Elmwood Cemetery. So when you go you get off at Gadsden you turn at the lizard stick it then what do you do? You make another right and another right takes you in a square underneath the bridge. So you turn right on Richland? Calhoun. Did you turn right on Calhoun? Yep. And then over to Wayne. Yes. I see. Okay. Now I'm with you now okay. So that funnels you directly in and out unless you're coming from the eastbound way the eastbound direction which then caused you to take the Old Elmwood. Right. So what is located besides the lizard stick it there? What is located in that block? I'm honestly not really sure. There's a couple of office buildings. Arsenal Hill would be the closest neighborhood on that side. Right. I do have some students who actually ride their bike from Arsenal Hill to Marion Street now. But it's that's mainly an industrial area. Okay. And then there's the Pavilion Towers or whatever it's called now. Yeah. The All South Bank is located in your mind's eye. It's just off to the right. Yeah. First across the bridge. And there's the Vista Towers or whatever it's Pavilion Towers, whatever. Those are farther off and. Right. Right. And that so that you wouldn't impact them at all because you're they're trained before. They access through I can't believe it's Richland Street. Yeah. Back in just a second. So right now currently have room for or 350 students at your current school. Is that correct? Um, one of my room for yes, we have we have a space for 300 students. Okay. And so I guess you've done some so you think the demand is there for 1000 more. Yeah. So the way the school is structured, we opened up with K to six. We have been adding an additional grade to eventually be K to 12. So every year we're adding a new grade next year. I'll have ninth grade students as well as a 4k. We found that there's a huge demand for 4k in this area. So we're adding one up and this will be the lowest down. But then we're adding an additional say kindergarten. An additional I have to first grade to second grade and to third grade to accommodate the demand for students within what I can handle in my little block on Marion. And so you're a nonprofit, right? School? Yes, you are a public school. Yes, man. Okay, because it does say some somewhere it says that you're not a proliferation of uses because you're a private school. Yeah, we're not a private school. If that was a specific public school right there at Logan Elementary. Logan Elementary is the closest school. Um, I believe they're a magnet school for Richland one. We serve K to we will serve K to 12 students from all over the Midlands area. We get a lot of folks that work at Prisma health and things like that to drop their kids off as well as folks that live in the immediate area. We provide all the same services of public school, special education services, anything of that nature. And we have the same accountability structure as a typical public school. What are your class? What are your school hours? Are they the same as the Richland one hours or are they different or I'm sorry, your hours of operating? When this classes start, what do they get out? So we're gonna do, we do a staggered dismissal and a staggered start. So our younger students come in at 730. Our older students come in at eight. They younger students dismiss at 230. Older students dismiss at three or five. Are you gonna allow the older students when they when you finally have 16 year olds to drive have cars on campus or there's some of them sitting behind me, but the answer to that is yes, if they have A's and B's or students are able to drive. Okay. And how many how large would that population be? I mean, I would take in high school and there were 5000 students at the time. So it was a huge parking lot. The high school students driving would probably be in the neighborhood of 150 students. If that were if you think we grow to four well wouldn't even be that many. We're going to four classes per grade level. So if you have 100 kids saying you're graduating class and 70 100% of them have all A's and B's 70% of them have all A's and B's and they don't ride a bike and they don't take the comet or whatever else. Right. Another unique aspect of our school is a lot of families attend. We have some families that have six children that attend our school. So a lot of them ride together in carpool and that kind of thing, which really helps us, especially on Marion Street with such a small site that we have there kind of manage the traffic as well. And you have students from all over the state? We do. Um, primarily from the Richland County, Richland County area, but we do have students from Cassett, Sumter, Orangeburg, really all over central South Carolina, primarily from parents who work in this area and prefer to for their child to attend school downtown where they're closer to them. So how do you how do you I guess I'm just confused a little bit the difference in you and the public school? How do you get funding and how does how does all that work? Okay, so we're authorized through the Charter Institute, Erskine, which is the same thing as the South Carolina Public Charter School District essentially. Um, they are our authorizers, so they ensure that I'm fiscally compliant and academically where I should be. Our funding comes directly from the state through the obviously it's up in the air right now. How the funding is going to come next year, but we get the same per people allocation as a regular public school from the state. We get additional federal funding for things like special education services and title one. We are a title one school. We do not receive any local funding. We receive no funding for capital projects and no funding for transportation. This is going to be an expensive project. Correct. So how's that gonna work? I've been painting my 27,000 square foot building myself for the past three years for one. We've you know, we we don't have a bureaucracy. I answer to a nonprofit board. Some of our board members are here, so there's really not a you know, there's no cabinet of superintendents that get paid. We employees of the school primarily do all of the work ourselves. Well, so we really have we've been very formal up until this point so that we're able to really invest and do something that, you know, is a permanent home for our kids. Right now, let's let's if we could get to the real cruxity issue, which is the traffic. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Um, I mean, I've been on I've been heading out mouth out I 126 and hit, you know, a snag at malfunction junction quite a ways back and gotten off at Greystone Boulevard and Siri has has rooted me, you know, all over the place and rerouted me and all like that. I mean, if there's a problem or there's you know, whatever's going on. You're talking about the only other than emergency vehicle ingress and egress is going to be there at that little gate under is that if someone, for example, I live in the scowling community, I live on the exactly on the other side of the river off of Greystone in between River Drive. I often take River Drive to park to main to work. And if that is, you know, if somebody lives in that area, that's understandable. However, it wouldn't that gate, they can't go in and out of the gate, but if they go around Main Street and go through River Drive, you know, I can't control that. But the only ingress and egress is going to be at that one gate under 126 the 226 other than pedestrian entrances, which is, you know, will sort out with the greenway. And there have been a number of discussions and we've received a number of letters from a number of neighborhoods. What is what is your position on the traffic calming that they have requested? My position is that number one, where I said I live, I drive that way frequently. So certainly some of the stop signs of traffic mitigation or park street, I can see where is needed to be completed. But in general, if my students are going to be walking through that neighborhood, then traffic calming measures or something that I'm absolutely a fan of and will take. Like I said, I have someone that comes from Arsenal Hill. He rides his electric scooter every day. And it gives me a little bit of a heart attack. But that's you know, so anything that is going to make it safer for the pedestrians is important to me. So you would support them? Oh, absolutely support it 100%. And they have sent me copies of I have seen the traffic calming measures and I do agree that they are needed. Absolutely. Okay. Does the traffic study look into what would happen if, you know, 900 and plus students coming in and say 500 vehicles trying to get in at the same time under that? The build by build in the traffic study is it. It delineates, you know, based on my staggered certain stop times. But again, we have 3,600 feet of stacking. And within the site, I believe it is nearly a mile all the way around. So you know, what is it 25? I was an English teacher, but you know, 20 25 feet of vehicle for 500 vehicles is a lot. Yeah, I was in English language. But even even so, like I said, we have so many siblings and so many families, the chances of 500 vehicles is so you just it looks into the possibility or the lack of likelihood the traffic would be backing up off of Gadsden on to Elmwood and back towards 120. It doesn't investigate that. Yes. And I believe that the neighborhoods have received copies of the neighborhood chair, Tavresin probably received copies of the traffic study as well. But they've been able to review now. Apologize for not including it in Erica. Can Erica, can we see the page in the application that shows the site plan? And do you mind walking us just through? Sure. People coming in under the bridge? Yeah, that's a yeah, the quality is not so great there. I was within the site. Yeah, so don't go in and out. Alright, so you're gonna come in. Let's say we're coming in off of the slip ramp off of Elmwood or either the four way stop. If you see the kind of green blob down there, that's the old workshop theater. So you're gonna come in there. There's a four way stop. That's where the gate is. Yes, that's where it will be gated. There'll be a the straight on and then also coming from the east. You're gonna come in and turn in there. You see the natural curvature. That was the old I think it was a seaborne railway or something to that effect. You're follow that around and there's two drop off points. You can see two cul-de-sacs vaguely on the site plan. You got the first one would be your first drop off point and you go around the cul-de-sac. That's two way traffic going back out. There's a second drop off for students attending in that building that you would continue up to that cul-de-sac and come back out also two way traffic. So it's two way traffic both ways. And that keeps it and that allows it still leaves room to allow for the greenway which would come in under the bridge and then we've created better copies. You can see it where there's actually a crossover for greenway pedestrians to the other side so they can walk the side closer to the neighborhood as opposed to the cemetery or CSX. Good question from a vehicular standpoint. There's no other use. There's no other. I mean y'all are the only use coming into that drive. Correct? Yes. Elmwood Cemetery. Elmwood Cemetery. I apologize. Yes. Elmwood Cemetery would be the only other. But not into the drive. Right now on their drive. Not once you turn off on the their drive. Right. Yeah. We're the only ones that would be using the Seaborn Railway road. Yeah. Okay. How are you going to keep students out of the cemetery? For one, there's a fence. But also, my students, they don't, I have, even if they throw a ball over the fence at Marion Street, they don't chase after it. We have a community. We built a community. We obviously have strong relationships with our parents. And, you know, students attend our school because they choose to be there or not because it's compulsory. They can always attend their districts and school. So, we don't typically have those types of problems. Although, I will tell you that from a teacher standpoint and an educational standpoint, I think there's a lot to be learned from the cemetery and a lot of history, particularly with the Douglas Cemetery and the Lower Cemetery and that kind of thing, but that's the cemetery. Yeah. We're a different, entirely different conversation there. Well, let's try to move this along. We've got a lot of people here to speak today. Do we have any more specific questions from the board? I'm sure we have a lot more opportunity to discuss them, especially in traffic, but any more questions for the applicant? I just have a quick question. You mentioned athletics and what kind of athletics do you envision there being, you know, there's a big difference, you know, from basketball to football. Obviously, there's... We do intend to have a field for football. Our kid, and that's something that I had no intention of doing. My kids are very passionate about it. It's made a huge difference in my students and community, so we do intend to put a field. Likely, I envision it's not on the site plan because it has not... This is a brand new thing that the kids wanted, so we did it. It would be in the very back corner, closest to CSX and closest to the river. We have a basketball team, baseball team, that kind of thing, but we're not by nature a sports-oriented school, necessarily, but it is something that, like I said, the kids wanted to do it, so... Puzinos would be competitive sports, because do you... Is there a... Not like an NCAA, you know, do you participate in the same sort of... There's a South Carolina high school, I guess. Okay. I didn't know if you were part of that or... We separate from that because we're not in college. We're currently independent. We're independent. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Well, this time, we'll move into the public input and portion. I know we have a lot of people here who like to speak. I guess we have a sign-in sheet. How are we going to do this? Is it numbered? Or we're just going to ask people to come up. I'm sure you have... How many do you have on the sheet today? Okay. Well, it's such a large number. Why don't we go in order one through 25? I hope maybe you can call them and just make it easy so we don't have so many people trying to decide who speaks. Let's just... Can we stipulate that... Could we stipulate that the school is a great school? And we're going to stick to a strict... Two minutes... Is it two minutes? Three minutes. Who's running the timer? Andrew. Alright. He's a bad guy. We're going to stick to it today. So, you get three minutes. So, everybody, we'll be respectful of your time, but please try to keep your comments relevant. Not necessarily the same thing the last person said. Behind you. Would it be possible if the people who are just here to support it wanted to stand instead of speak individually? Just a suggestion. I agree. Can we just start calling them up? You ready? Give us one second. We've got an extra person signing. What's this? Okay. So, this is as good a time as any while we're waiting in order here for the public discussion. One of our board members, Marcella's is going to ask if anyone has a problem with invading on this matter. And if anyone does, he will accuse himself of not wanting to through. So, this is a good time as any. Marcella's premise. I neglected to disclose that I'm related to Tina Herbert who's on City Council. Who's elected City Council this year. Of course, we do not discuss any matters involving both. And I wanted to put this on record. All right. Thank you, Marcella. Sir, I heard Marcella's testimony. Does anyone have a problem with Marcella's voting in this case? He's related to a council member. Tina Herbert. I am related to City Councilwoman Tina Herbert. And she was she was elected this year. But at no time do we discuss any matters involving both. And I wanted to put it on record. Okay. Does anyone have a problem with that? All right. Very good. Thank you for disclosing that. All right. Let's move on. Who's speaking? I'll just go down the list. Please. Right. And I apologize in advance if I must. Marjorie Mack. Thank you. Tina. I was just going to say that the property for Tartar school is directly behind our fence. So we're directly related. I mean we're affected by the traffic. And we just are strongly in favor of the school being built. That lane is very valuable. We all know Columbia's lane lot. So that is one of the few spots where people can build. And we just feel like a school is the best possible option. I'm a world traffic morning in the community. But if you're going to be built or a high rise, the whole school will 24-7 all the time. I just have a vision of high rise going up there with college students party and drinking and making noise. Something that will be built there and we just feel like the school is the best option for us. Thank you. Tommy Mack. Denise Welman. Thank you very much for the one of the historic districts that you have a letter from. Appreciate you taking the time to read that. Like you, we did not get a copy of the traffic study. So not all neighborhoods were provided the traffic study. But we're here today to ask you, on behalf of the neighborhood, to really take the time to evaluate that traffic study. Let's not jump to conclusion. We need to look at the main arteries that you referenced, how they back up. And we need to look at the secondary roads that pass through Cottontown, and Arsenal Hill, and Earlwood, and Elmwood Park. All of them matter to what we're trying to do here. And someone once told me that traffic tends to travel like water. We're all going to take the path of least resistance, just like what water does. You know that. And I think that we want it to be known that we're also for planned growth. And we're excited that Clear Dot has found a location that they think will work for them. And we are also all for quality schools, really, especially in downtown Columbia. And we're also for the joining of residential and commercial interests in a way that really benefit the city. But we're also for fairness. And we're also for the fact that all historic districts are going to be looked at with the same light that are going to be affected by that traffic study that you were provided this afternoon. That traffic study assumes a lot of things. It assumes that traffic is always moving. And it is faster to follow the main arteries if traffic is always moving. We live in these neighborhoods. And we know the repetition, the literal parking lot that is on our city streets through our historic districts, even though there are signs up that say you may not turn into this street. So we also have very little enforcement of the traffic violations. That's not Clear Dot's problem. That's our problem the city needs to address. We also have a growing problem with speeding. And it gets worse during peak hours when everybody is backed up and they're trying to get home or to pick up children or whatever. We've had people hit. We've had children and dogs hit. And we care about the safety of those that live in our neighborhoods as much as we do about the children that are going to be in this school. I really ask you on behalf of our neighborhood to take the time to look at this traffic study carefully that we don't even know if DOT has approved at this point. I also ask that you consider our letter and our map of the traffic calming needs that Cottontown needs as much as the other historic districts that you've heard from. OK, thank you. Denise Bryant, Caitlin Wilson, Jada Creighton, Danny Woodrow, Amy Johnson, Charles Johnson, Terence Sweeting, Timothy and Autumn Higgins, Tracy Thurber, Ted Rents, Kareem Dupri. All right, afternoon. Nervous, real nervous. Tick-tock. I'm not against the school not being built, but the leadership at the school. The things that they do to these kids, I'm a softball coach. The days of how they treat the kids, they're always in detention. The baseball coach or the football coach some can get into a fight, they get detention, but they can't go out for making a tick-tock before school. The kids think they're racist. I have on video record that I'm trying not to go to the news. She wanted to kick my daughter out of school while holding her head down crying because it was an altercation at the own softball field. They had kids walking to practice. I had to get my wife to come home from work, help me feed the girls and pick them up, take them to the ball field because the homeless man was hitting on them. They had no leadership skills at all. They kicked my son out of school, but they didn't spell him. They just didn't want him coming back for whatever reason. All I say is, if y'all want to build that school, get the right people, not them. Because if y'all build that school and I see them, I'm going to go straight to the news. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Ashley, family and family. Taylor, Glenn, Aidan, Carlton, Ayanna, King. Dylan, Taylor. Skyler, Carlton. Elijah, Wicker. Autumn, Higgins. Neil, Wicker. Diana, Wicker. OK, there should be a letter in the packet from Diana Wicker. There was. Yes, thank you. Dr. Lindsay Ott, you spoke earlier. Zeb, Volks. All right, well, thank you. But we can't take any testimony from the seats, so. Come on up, coach. As we recorded in the microphone. First of all, thank y'all for this opportunity and the time that y'all allowed us to come and speak to you. The only thing I can do, I work at the school as a head football coach and a mentor there for the kids. And all I can do is speak from the heart. What drove me to this vision was just the opportunity that someone believed in me, that I been involved with sports for so long in this district. I used to coach at our Creighton Middle School for 10 years as a head football coach there. So I impacted thousands of kids. And not one time have I ever had anything that was negative or disruptive about me and how I'm new or interact with the kids. Every morning I get up, the first thing I do is thank God, because he's allowed me to see another day. But not only that, just the thought that I have a chance to impact another kid or another administrator or other coaches. My son, he attends that school. And just this one year that we've been at school, his whole life has changed. Not just academic wise, but social skills and just being around positive and motivated type people that love the passion of Cleardot Charter School and the thoughts and dreams of making great human beings out of these kids. That's some of them right there that I impact every day. Matter of fact, I impacted some of them this morning at practice. But the only thing I'm going to say, I understand the young man previously and his concerns, but I have to speak for myself and I have to speak the truth. I know both of his kids and I interact with both of them. And what you heard is not always what's going on. It's a backstory. So I just want you all to understand and know that I used to work for Homeland Security at the federal building right here in front of us. I took that job and bought this company for it. Just for the opportunity. For other administrators, they do the same thing. Every morning, they grow in that school trying to make a positive impact on these kids. And that's what we're doing. It's a fight every day because we've got a lot of things that we have to go through and establish. We don't have much, but we're making the best of what we got. Very good. And we need to wrap it up. We can just a couple more seconds, but thank you. Thank you. I'm just thank you so much for that. Thank you, just to make it very, very well spoken. OK, Elijah, folks. Sarah Fisher? Sure. We were here a couple of years ago. If you look on the bottom right of this picture, we're the lot 2201 Wayne Street that got rezoned from, could you step just a little closer so we get your testimony? Like commercial to residential, we're at 2201 Wayne Street on the bottom right. So my husband and I both would be impacted by the traffic. He had 126, and then I would head out 277. And both of us are in favor of this school being built. We have a transient issue that I felt threatened by on multiple occasions. And reforming back behind our lot, you know, the entry here, that's going to change the scope of how safe we feel behind our lot, but also on the Palmetta Parkway. So I guess the two issues really that I wanted to point out to you is we are immediately and violently affected by this and are in favor, both on the traffic front as far and also the scope of building behind us. OK, interesting. Thank you. Thank you. Regina Reed? Jason Cook? I came to speak because this school has really done a lot for me. Like, there's been so much that I've been through. Through the last three years, I've been through everything. And they have really supported me even though I've given up on myself and the teachers are truly like, truly great people. Them people over there have really saved me and really showed me the way to be myself and be a good person. And so I just want to give my support and at least say something. Wow, thank you. Mary Kate Corpita? Multiple of my neighbors also live on Wayne Street. I moved in in November of this past year. I'm actually born and raised here in Columbia. And after school, I moved to Dallas, Texas. About three years ago, visiting family, I was excited about the development and the progress that the city has made. And my husband and I decided to move back here. So we're so excited to be back in the city and again, just excited about the progress that the city's made. We are in full support and favor of this school because of the way that it's going to not only change our neighborhood and make us feel safer, but because of the educational quality that will be boosted in our neighborhood and it'll give us opportunities that we wouldn't have had previously. We are not at all concerned about the traffic and we're just in full support and favor. As my previous neighbor mentioned, we do have a severe problem with people camping behind our fences currently. There's always trash and so, you know, not only are we excited about the development, but we wanna make sure it's the right development. And so we don't wanna see just another, you know, apartment complex come up. We love the idea that being a school that also will support our greenway system. We all have bikes and we love riding around the neighborhood and we love the idea of being able to now take that down into the heart of Columbia. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Johnny Smith. Johnny Smith. Emily Byrne. Hi, my name is Emily Byrne. I am the president of the Earlwood Community Citizens Organization, ECO, and I'm here on behalf of Earlwood and our Neighborhood Association. We have been in communication with representatives from Clear Dot since early 2021 and are thankful for them listening to the concerns of our neighborhood. I'm gonna quickly highlight the three primary concerns that Earlwood residents have expressed regarding this development. First is the increase in vehicle traffic and cut through traffic through the neighborhood to get to and from the school, which has been discussed at length. Second, that the entrance and exit on Park Street be solely used for emergency vehicles. And third, that the completion of the Vista Greenway be done as promised and that neighborhood residents will obviously have access to the Greenway and that it wouldn't be for school only. ECO on behalf of Earlwood Neighborhood asks that the zoning exception be conditioned upon the implementation of our requested traffic calming measures, which were included in today's packet. Clear Dot has assured Earlwood that they will provide these traffic calming measures as part of their development to make our neighborhood streets safer for not only Earlwood residents, but also these students. Our primary goal in requesting each of these measures is to keep our neighbors, children, pets, and visitors safe while anticipating the traffic needs of this development. We also request, again, the additional confirmation that the Park Street driveway only be used for emergency services and that the Vista Greenway be completed as promised, otherwise we have no other issues with this development. Okay, I have a quick question for you. I'm glad you brought that up. The traffic calming measures now that you have produced, was that made in conjunction with the city engineer? How did you come up with that now? It was more to highlight the problem areas that our neighbors have noticed. We asked for public input from our neighborhood and people address whether it's speeding or we have quite a few stretches of roadways through Earlwood that don't have four-way stops or a stop sign so people can just absolutely fly through, which would make it attractive as a cut through. So we wanna add those types of barriers to people wanting to cut through to make it more agreeable to go Main Street to Elmwood to the front entrance that way. We, of course, I'm not a traffic engineer. I'm an attorney slash a stay-at-home mom right now so I don't report to know everything that needs to be done. Traffic-wise, we are agreeable to if the traffic engineer looks and says this isn't appropriate here but this is, that's fine as long as these problem areas are addressed. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. By Cardinal. Almost, good evening. Good evening. I also live on Wayne Street. I've lived here for six years. I've been on the street for five. We are probably the most impacted and we're very for this. We do have a terrible problem with transient people behind and we get fires and trash and I don't feel safe a lot of times and I'm going into my own driveway but that's not the real reason. Schools actually make good neighbors and I've lived in New Orleans and Houston downtown and what I've seen is that if there are choices young families will stay in urban downtowns instead of going to Lexington or Chapin or where else and so you get a lot of young couples with young kids and they leave because sometimes they just don't see the options. Also, if there was gonna be any kind of neighbor because I expect given the growth and all in Noma and all of downtown someday something will be put there and a school actually gives us some control over the kind of neighbor. It's not 24 seven. It's not the pool parties that you see in the Columbia news on the TV. I did read the traffic report and I recognize there'll be traffic but all growth brings traffic. For example, we have Bull Street. We have Benton Crossing going up on River Drive. My understanding is there's gonna be an apartment complex on the northeast side of Elmwood and North Main over some old car dealership across from the new Uncle Willie's grocery store and that will bring traffic. I've seen all this kind of traffic both in Houston and New Orleans when there's growth in an area. So I see that as very positive. I before the traffic kind of what do you call it? Controls slowing down but we've got growth in this part of downtown. It's coming whether we all like it or not. So I'd like to have some say in the kind of growth but I'd also like to see young families wanna stay downtown and not leave to the suburbs and that's the positive especially when I also look at what's going on in Greenville and Charleston, almost too much growth and I would say one thing. I love, I think Cottontown is my favorite neighborhood and there just wasn't anything for sale. I think it's the cutest neighborhood. I love Earlwood. I love the whole Noma part of the city and I'm excited by it. I like to walk. I like to bike. I have dogs. I get sad when I see even squirrels get run over. I do wanna say one thing is it's something interesting. Some of the traffic flows in Cottontown have already been completely controlled and I don't know if that happened with the Bull Street project or it was before my time but there are medians built in the middle of the road to force all the traffic on Confederate and so I don't know if having lived in big cities before I know that dispersing traffic actually can you both control it like in a parking lot so you only go in exit A instead of all the exits but sometimes dispersing traffic actually can also be a positive as opposed to a negative and so it just sort of depends on what street you probably live on but we're directly impacted on Wayne Street so thank you for your time today. Thank you. Thank you. Rai Martinez. I'm Rai Martinez. I'm a parent of two students at the school. Allison 10, she's an upcoming fifth grader and Sophia, she's an upcoming fourth grader, I'm sorry, first grader, she's five. I wanted to speak on behalf of Clear Dot Charter School. My kids, they are public school students even before Clear Dot but Clear Dot has given my kids a chance of option. You know, when you're dealing with schools in South Carolina, you're dealing with zoned so they gave us basically Clear Dot is an option of them going to another school. When I put them in there, it was literally just to try it out. My kids love that school. They love that option. I was just so happy to find that out. I did want to touch on a few things. I can't speak about traffic. I don't know much about it. I'm here as a parent. However, who else to not speed in the neighborhood other than the parents who students or who kids in that case, they're not students to us. There are kids. Who else is going to slow down other than us? We're not going to speed through neighborhoods. So that's just coming from the heart. I didn't prepare a speech. I literally just wanted to point out a few things that I heard while sitting down. Another thing is I asked my daughter if she could change one thing about her school. What would she change? And she said extra curriculum. Currently they are in a school that is small. It's very small tight space. The school does what they can to accommodate the students. But if they could have sports at a school that they love these students and these kids, they love clear diet. So they can just not have to go to a bigger school with a bigger space just because of sports, just because of extra curriculum. All schools deserve that. So I think that this space most definitely can, well, will accommodate the students in that aspect. Another thing is a guy, I want to point out, I think racism was mentioned. I'm actually the vice president of South Carolina Black Activist Coalition. And I'm also the founder of Empower South Carolina. I do a lot of activism work here in Columbia and around the state. My organization was actually the organization that brought that to the forefront. And my kids are still a part of that school. So I think that speaks a lot of value. That was an isolated incident. That's not the character of clear diet charter school. In fact, a lot of the kids at clear diet are of all different races. It's not white, black or indifferent, like purple or blue, you're all treated the same. My kids are Mexican, American and black. So, and again, the staff and I, we have a good relationship and they do that with all the parents. Any parent that's willing to talk to them, they are forthcoming, open and upfront with us. So I just wanted to speak on behalf of any parent that maybe was scared to come up in speed, that maybe, I'm sorry, did I press something? No, there's no time. Okay, I'm running out of time. We'll do a few more seconds. I'm running out of time. Yep. I'm lonely, I'm lonely and I'm clumsy. Other than that, just know that we love clear diet charter school. I want my kids to stay there from K to 12. I hope that we have the opportunity to do so. And I'm gonna stick with them through thinking thin. Thank you. Thank you very much. John Wilkinson. Good afternoon, my name is John Wilkinson. I'm serving as the president of the Elwood Park Neighborhood Association. I'd like to read a statement on behalf of our neighborhood board, but would first like to compliment the young man for his public speaking ability. Hope I can compare. Very good. ClearDOT is proposing to build their campus in Elwood Park. And we have been working with the ClearDOT team for over a year to understand the project and to address our concerns. Hosting our first public neighborhood info session in March of 2021. In an additional session specifically on their traffic plans, not their study, but their traffic plans at the end of September, which was well attended and has now been viewed over 600 times on Facebook. We updated our neighborhood at every neighborhood meeting and in every monthly newsletter. And we received a wealth of feedback from our neighbors over the last year. Our neighborhood choose to engage in a positive, proactive and transparent way from the beginning. We want to quickly touch on three things today. Development, traffic and education. Elwood Park is excited about development and the energy and prosperity it will bring. It is why many of us live downtown. We are not a not in my backyard neighborhood. Our goal is simply to protect and enhance the things that make Elwood Park such a wonderful place to live. The historic character, its pedestrian friendly walkability, its natural beauty and most importantly the sense of community we have. And our community has been clear that a school would be a welcome option on this property and much preferred over high density housing which it is zoned for. We know that many families move out of Elwood Park when their children reach middle and high school age or just don't move into the neighborhood in the first place because of the schools. Another school option could change that and our neighborhood children could walk to school if their families chose clear dot. But they can only walk to school and we can only maintain a safe pedestrian friendly environment if we can mitigate the traffic impacts of the school. We have worked hard to reach an agreement with city staff, SCDOT and clear dot to do just that. By adding a series of traffic calming measures inside the neighborhood, we think it can work. Elwood Park is not a gated community and we do not want it to be. We also do not want our neighborhood to be an easy cut through for traffic moving through a congested downtown corridor. Clear dot is clearly not the only contributor to downtown traffic but we welcome their contribution to solving the problem. And I believe city staff has the details on our specific traffic calming requests. The Elwood Park Neighborhood Association is in favor of the special exception conditional on the traffic calming mitigations that have already been agreed and others that may be added. Thank you for your consideration and thank you for your service on this board. Okay. Anyone want to say before you go? Again, glad we're talking about this. So I didn't realize that the board may not either. So there is actually an agreement. So expand a little bit on that. The agreement with some of the roadways, DOT roads sitting there, like confederate, is that? Almost all of them. But a lot of them are just roads of city street. Right. In Elwood Park, nearly every street is city maintained. That's right. Okay. All right. So is what you're saying earlier, does that have to do with the traffic map that we've been provided? Is that, has that been agreed upon? Or are you talking about a different plan for the neighborhood? I'm not sure which maps you're referring to. Okay. Well, tell me a little bit more. What do you mean by the agreement in place with the DOT and cities? What is the agreement? The agreement with clear dots, Mr. Elder Broker, Mr. Chris Farley and with city staff to review the request that we've made and we worked with SCDOT to identify what those could be and that they could be effective. We met with Lori Campbell, who's the district engineer for our area for SCDOT. And we presented those and clear dot agreed, our understanding is that clear dot has agreed to help fund those traffic calming mitigations. Okay. Well, hope, do you know, what's being proposed is part of our packet? Is this it? Yeah, that's it. There are some traffic calming measures and maps included in the packet. So is that what's been agreed upon with the DOT and city staff? I'm not certain about that. Not to my knowledge. I can just. I believe there was, or go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. I know that there were four, let's see, four way stops that have been agreed upon. And that was in the historic Earlwood neighborhood request for traffic calming measures. That's going to be on city council's agenda in their, at their next meeting, I believe. So those four way stops, I know those have been approved through the city traffic engineer. Anything else I'm not aware of. Please. And I believe Dr. Ott said she could answer some of those questions. Okay. We'll have a chance. I think it's this. That's the map that Elwood Park is. This is the Elwood Park. So that's what you're referring to. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your testimony. Thank you. All right. Who's next? Keisha Wilson. Good evening. My name is Keisha Wilson and I am a parent of a child at Clear Dot Charter School. Initially I just came here to support but I felt compelled to speak on their behalf. I'm a long life resident of Columbia, South Carolina. I attended several different public schools here and what I can say about Clear Dot, I have never, ever, ever experienced a school where the administration, the staff, the attendance, everyone takes great care of our kids. They exceptionally love and make sure that they not just become great academics but they're instilling morals into these kids. They're teaching them about agriculture. They're teaching them how to be good human beings and we need that more than ever in this society. What I can say about Dr. R, I can email her and within 24 hours she responds, whether she's there or not. I haven't ever experienced that with any administrator in any school ever that speaks volume to her character, that speaks volume to all of the teachers' characters because they always respond and they always care and make sure that the kids have what they need. This school is very beneficial not only to the community but to our society in which they're building great citizens. And like the young lady said, having a school in that community will actually help subside traffic and make it even a safer place to prevent vagrants in empty areas of that area. So thank you for your time and consideration. I really hope that you take this measure because these kids really need a place to grow and to develop. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Alberto Tejada. Hi, my name's Al Tejada. I'm an employee, coach baseball. I'm an ISS monitor at school. More importantly, I'm a parent. My son's Lucas is here. He's gonna be in this first class in the ninth grade. He's district for Riverguff. I could go there. We were there. We were at Meadow Glen. We transferred over. I could tell you about what I think of the school but I'm gonna tell you about what he thinks of the school. He doesn't want to go back. Those are great schools, great facilities, great opportunities but he wants this one. And that's important to me. I want to point out some other things. I know that traffic isn't my thing either but we talked about it. I guess other people talk about development and education. This is truly about the development and education of those kids and giving them a fair opportunity. It's tough to say that they have a fair opportunity at the schools that they're district for here in the city of Columbia at times but I'm telling you one thing. I've connected all these kids and these kids are special and I hope you give them that opportunity to continue to grow and to continue to shine for Columbia and the state of South Carolina. Thank you. Thank you. Misty Snow. Hi, I'm Misty Snow. I'm a resident of Columbia. I'm a mother of an upcoming second grader at Clear Dot and I just wanna briefly go over some thoughts that I had. I'll read some of it. Let's see. Not only do I have my daughter there but we actually followed Jason who you heard speak. His family is who introduced us to Clear Dot. We introduced an extended amount of people so I think we have maybe six more people that are at Clear Dot now that we're spread out all over Columbia in different schools and we've come to find a home there. Like you've heard from other parents, Clear Dot is not just a school to us. Clear Dot is a family. Clear the administration, the teachers. I can text the teacher at seven or nine o'clock at night which I shouldn't do with a question and she's answering. You know, during the school day if there's an issue going on, I can get a text message or a call very easily from a teacher rather than having to go through a whole selection of administration for them to let me know what's going on with my child. Everyone is very proactive, very hands on. If they notice a child is struggling, not just with school work but at home or emotionally, they get involved. My child was one of those this year. We went through an emotional split in our family and they stepped in and helped us through a tremendous situation for my daughter that would have been really detrimental to her grades and they kept her on top, they kept her going and they kept her encouraged to want to come to school, to want to be a part of everything. Another thing that hasn't been addressed is our school goes around the world every year. So our children have like passport books where they've studied the world and they interact with their passport books by drawing animals or food or something that they've learned from that country. So this is not just a school at all for us. Another thing I wanted to address is long before or right when COVID hit, our school was super proactive about putting in a machine that gauged your temperature and gave you a verbal permission to come through. And it also works as a metal detector. So we'll have that in advance of all of the things we're seeing going on right now. So we have a very proactive team. We love them, we love this school and we are really looking forward to growing with them. My daughter started there in kindergarten and I look forward to her graduating with them. Thank y'all for your time. Thank you. That's all we have on the list. Okay, thank you very much. Andrew, do we have anyone on the floor? Oh no, Mr. Daner. Mr. Chairman, I'm Jim Daniel. I'm a commercial real estate broker. I've done considerable deals in the North Main Area and off of Elmwood. Couple of questions I didn't hear answered. One of the issues with the prior Jim Boer dealership was bus traffic. Here you mentioned the busses. All the buses going in and out of this and how do they access in and out? Secondly, this looks to be a very good use of a property that's very difficult to develop and I don't have any issue with the school. My wife worked at Sand Hill, so she's familiar with some of the issues these children are facing. My real concern is in and out. If I understand this correctly, when I go to Elmwood Cemetery, I guess it's on Gadsden and you follow that road that goes to Elmwood Cemetery and I'm assuming they would follow that same road to go to what used to be the workshop theater location. Coming out, you can, when you come out of Elmwood, you go back the same way. No, yeah, and you get, there's a paved, maybe that's Gadsden Street that goes underneath the underpass that goes to I-26, so I'm assuming that's their main way in and out to the neighborhood south of Elmwood. Some of you are familiar with Heathwood Hall. It's a one-in, one-way out type school that has roughly the same student body size that this school will have. You'll probably remember those who went there, the long lines trying to get in and get out. There's a much longer landing field, so to speak, a landing pad there about a mile from the school to Buff Road, so I guess I haven't seen the traffic study but I think y'all really need to look at it and you need to, the neighborhood I think has presented some good back steps to help the traffic come and stay out of their neighborhood but there's not a lot of avenues out or in if you come out and you go to where the piggy park is and you wanna get on Elmwood Avenue, that's an awfully hard intersection to get out of because you've got traffic coming over there if you're trying to move bus traffic that way that's gonna be difficult. My question, I don't think's been answered is how do they disperse the traffic? I mean, I think they've been hit on it but I think they really need some more discussion about that and is there any issue about bus traffic getting in and out? Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any callers today? All right, bear with me here. Sure. The technicians have not entirely been resolved but I'm gonna try to patch through a caller here. You have not read it, but it is 20 pages, another page, and 20 pages. I strongly urge you, your decision on this, on this grant of the very, very, very important work. And for instance, there are three summaries affected by the egress and exit of the cleanup. The cleanup, St. Peter's, St. Peter's Seminary, and the Seminary, and Yandere Seminary. The end of the school, I'm really made, really deep consideration that it's the traffic calming but they don't want the traffic calming of the two most affected neighborhoods. I strongly urge all of you to make a decision. And that's all I'm gonna say. Thank you very much. It was difficult to understand. I think there were words being deferred or not solved. Andrew, do you know the name of the caller for the record so we can restart if someone tried to? Yeah. Could you give that to us, please? Name and position would be nice. What's the name? It's Peter Korper. You're calling Elmwood Park, Elmwood Park resident. Thank you. That hopefully is the only call. I have other callers, but no one's raised their hands. I do think we have a few emails. Yes. Okay. Let's read them. I have an email from a Rebecca Smith. Starts off, hi there. I'm tuning online to the Boza meeting today, June 2nd. I would like to express my fervent support of traffic calming measures in my neighborhood of Elmwood Park as most of utmost importance, priority and non-negotiables in the approval of Clear Dot Charter School's new development in our neighborhood, especially on my street of West Confederate Avenue that will most definitely see high increases in traffic and speeding cars. She said, thank you very much. And then she sent a follow-up email that stated, I would like to add that as excited as I am for a great new school to enter our area. But I am going to rebut a comment made earlier by the potential school developers. As a neighborhood resident, it is most definitely going to impact more than just four intersections. I actually live on West Confederate. The street currently has no speed bumps and we already face speeders. It is used as a direct cut-through from River, Bull Street and North Main. West Confederate will most definitely be used as a cut-through. We need speed calming measures and multiple speed bumps on West Confederate from North Main to the school grounds. And the last comment that she'd like to tell the board, her beloved cat Penny Lane was recently hit and killed by a speeding driver on West Confederate and it devastated me. I share this to tell the board that we already have a tremendous speeding problem in our neighborhood. Second, the Cotton Town President's comment that analyzing the impact will, that this will have on secondary roads needs thorough evaluation. Thank you very much, Smith. I'm sorry, I did receive an email from Misty Snow but she did come up and speak. Sure, I'm sure, thank you. All right, well, we're gonna input then and I would like to ask the applicant to approach please. Okay, well we're gonna give you five minutes for a bottle, but before we do, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. A member of the public in his testimony, I thought, brought up a couple of really good questions that I'd like to know the answers to. Do you have buses? Kind of a funny conversation, but no. We're not funded for buses. We do have a very small activity bus and we'll probably have another activity bus, but otherwise. Understood, and I don't think that's what he was referring to. And second, he brought up a good question again about the traffic stacking and queuing, especially with respect to Elmwood and the entrance being so close to Elmwood. I think that's a very good question. What are some of the mitigation, what are the faults going into that? So you're talking about stacking from the actual entrance to the site to Elmwood. Exactly. If you consider that we have 925 students staggered starting stop times in addition to particularly in the afternoons, we have aftercare until 6 p.m. In addition to the large majority of our students being involved in some type of extracurricular activity, that would mitigate any chance that we could extend past the 3,600 feet and then the additional to Gadstone. Not sure that. So if I'm on Elmwood, how far approximately do you think your gate is from Elmwood Avenue? I would say, honestly, I really don't know. A couple thousand feet? Can't be, it's close. Because on the floor, you would have the graphics place and then the bike collective, modern exterminating, and then the old workshop theater building and field, which is part of the property, but that's gonna be used for the entrance. So that's, I mean, it's a fairly considerable distance. The actual entrance really butts up to the cemetery side. Right, so it's technically would be under Elmwood, not just one Elmwood. Right, it's under Elmwood. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So you're gonna have a gate there. Is there really a guard at the gate or are you? We are. Okay, so you have a guard at the gate and then you're looking to make sure the car has the sticker or whatever to come in. So I guess our concern is any negative traffic implications from the time someone approaches the gate until backing up towards, whether it's Gadstone or Elmwood. So we're not checking at that gate. That's not where we're checking for the sticker. Okay. We're checking for the sticker at the actual, at the whole side. Okay, so throw the old site. Right, so as they're pulling in, what our employees are doing is ensuring that no one attempts, which once the bridge is completed and that Gadstone, you cannot turn down Wayne or Gadstone right there. Our employees are there to ensure that people go straight and don't try to take a left and cut through the neighborhood back to Elmwood. Who is your, obviously we're gonna have a, who's your civil engineer for the project? Our civil engineer we've been working with, Ted Bottomley for civil, our traffic engineer was Todd Salvegan. Okay. All right, well, thank you for answering our questions. So at this point, you have five minutes for a battle. Floor is yours, does anything you want in response to testimony go to bad? Floor is yours? Okay, really most of mine was gonna be to answer these questions. I do wanna clarify a couple of things. I know the traffic is really a concern for everyone but I wanna reinforce to the people behind me more so than you guys that this is the beginning of a process, certainly not the end of a process. We continue the engineering with our civil engineer with the city engineers, with the DOT engineers and offices, school facilities from this point forward. This is solely the point that says that we have the opportunity to continue this process. As far as the questions that were being asked to the neighborhoods, to Elmwood and Earlwood, to my knowledge, some of the traffic calming measures have been reviewed by the city engineer. My intent and my conversations with them is as we continue working with the city engineer is to bring those to the table and say, these are what the neighborhood would like. How do we incorporate their traffic calming measures into our greenway access, into our traffic mitigation plans and continue that process while including them in the conversation. So whether or not they've gone through the whole engineering process, we'll continue that just like I said, this is the beginning of a process that says I can close on the property and continue working with engineers to ensure that these things happen. I'm interested, makes sense. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay, well, we certainly had a good discussion here today and let's move into the board discussion. Who wants to start? Well, I think what she said just now is probably, considering what our responsibilities are as a zoning board and what we can actually approve and not approve. I think the clear dot being in communication constantly to make sure that the neighborhood measures that all three neighborhoods that are gonna be affected by this are approved and maintained. I think that's really the most important thing here, considering that what our obligation is, is to make sure there's special exceptions meet our criteria. And the main point of that is traffic impact. And so if clear dot agrees to stay in communication with these three, mainly the three neighborhoods, Elmwood, Elwood Park, Elwood Elmwood Park and Cotton Town, then I don't see a lot of the other stuff. I don't know how much power we have over that, but we can make sure that there's an exception that they stay in contact with the neighbors there to make sure those traffic measures are in place. Good. Kevin? I think that the strongest thing I've heard is about the school, the importance of having a school in the area. I think it's a very important thing. I think that that enhances the viability of these valuable historic neighborhoods. I live in University Hill and we're actually zoned for the good schools. And I understand it's been a problem for Elmwood Park and those other neighborhoods because the parents have to decide, are we going to move? Are we going to go private school? What are we gonna, or are we gonna send our kids to the schools we're zoned for, which unfortunately are not that great. So I think it's very important that we go ahead with this. I am very concerned about the traffic issues that they're raising. I'm very encouraged by the fact that clear dot seems to be very anxious also for those same reasons. What I'd like to see is that we approve this subject to ongoing discussions and have put some kind of contingency in there for those ongoing discussions to deal with, as Sherrod says, the issues that are raised by Elmwood Park, Earlwood, and Cotton Town, particularly Confederate Avenue in Cotton Town. I think some of the other stuff has to do more with the Bull Street impact and not this school. So I guess that I'd like to propose a motion that we approve it when you're ready. Yeah, let's hang on, make sure you don't speak. Good point. Yeah, I'll jump in if that's all right. I mean, looking at the criteria for special exception, at least like all of them are answered, other than item number two, this is the proposed special exception, complies all, no, sorry, number three, the proposed special exception will not have a substantial adverse impact on vehicular traffic or vehicular and pedestrian safety. And we can't say right now, based on the plan, the semi-application that it complies with that criteria. So the only opportunity to potentially approve it would be with a contingency that this, whatever plan moves forward will comply with item number three of the criteria for special exception. Second. Yeah, I mean, my thought on number three is with respect to the adverse impact on vehicular traffic, I think we can put a contingency in there, whether that's a physical barrier on Elmwood to prevent people from turning left to go up old Elmwood and cut through the neighborhood. I think we can put a contingency in the granting of the special exception. Well, hang on a second, I don't know about that. Elmwood's a DOT roadway. We can't require DOT to do anything, but what we can do kind of, to Catherine's point, is I think we can craft our motion as such that the applicants agree to work with the city's traffic engineer or approach DOT or someone about some traffic calming measures. I mean, it's really just out of our, it's really, as well as the neighborhood presidents. The old Elmwood the same as Elmwood because that's really the sort of like living here. I think old Elmwood is the little, side street that graffiti in that is on. And so that would mean Elmwood itself is up until the point where 126 takes over. Correct, yes. Even so, I think we need to be careful about specific, we all, I think John is saying that you have to do this. He just says that it's the thing. We can make it contingent. Yeah, right. They work it out. It needs to be that they work with the city engineer and with his recommendation and possibly approach DOT, that's the way it needs to be. Because I mean, otherwise, I mean, if it's done for high density residential, I mean, this is a lower traffic impact than that. Yeah, well, not, not so sure about that because apartments cut people come and go at random times versus school, it's all at once. Maybe they have a second time. I mean, I can clearly distinguish this from Heathwood because this has access to considerably better bicycle, pedestrian and public transportation than the Heathwood campus does considerably more so. But, so I'd like to make a motion. Well, hang on, hang on, one second. Celia? So I think there's, I have sort of a litany of thoughts. Okay. In specific to item number three, I think we're on a good track to talk about the larger of field traffic calming measures and then are there specific interventions right at that entrance? I don't want us to overlook item number five. You know, you take sort of junior high school as an example that as they grew, the athletic fields have been worse. Serious point of contention. You know, there are ways to mitigate that. And so I think we just need to be smart. You know, if there's things that we can do, you know, there was discussion about landscape along that sort of the edge with the neighborhood. And so if we can put something, you know, there's a big difference between a shrub that's nice landscaping and trees that can sort of mitigate the residential scale versus that. And is that outside of our? No, I mean, agreed. That's a good point. But keep in mind that this is sort of the first step to allow them to get to that. To get to that point for site plan review, they'll have to work with the city staff to make sure it meets all the land development regulations. So in fact, the preliminary site plan does show a nice looking buffer between the neighborhood. So that is promising. I do believe they're gonna have to do that. So I would encourage us not to add anything specific to buffering anything into our motion. We could certainly specify that at no time subsequent would number five be substantially adversely impacted something like that. Yeah, yeah, there's a big difference between us. The school which is their life school problem. You know, that they were gonna, they were just this little tiny thing and all of a sudden they're gonna have big giant lights upcoming, you know, big, you know, cleat lights. Again, we don't even have their site plan. I mean, this is to get to the point. So how do we wanna craft up? I was gonna ask who's really good at these words? Catherine's asked a couple of times. Well, everyone is okay with it. We'll let Catherine make a motion. All right, Catherine. Catherine, it was yours. This is subject to discussion, but I move that we approve the project subject to approval of traffic calming measures to be placed in the Elmwood Park, Orlewood and Contantown neighborhoods to mitigate the impact of the project. Make that into English. To be approved to be granted by the city traffic engineer and the presidents of said neighborhoods. Something to that, make that into English, but tie it all together nicely. Well, we need a specific sort of concise motion. I understand what you're trying to say. Well, the problem was that what I'm hearing was, is that Elmwood, Orlewood is not tied into particular points. They're saying we would like some calming measures to be made and we're willing to negotiate with the city engineers as to exactly where they would be. That they said we'd like to see them here, but maybe somewhere else is possible. As I understood, Ms. Byrne said. Well, hang on a second. We can't have, I'm sorry, but we can't have a public input. We're in full discussion. All right, well, here's my problem with that, Catherine. It's unenforceable. Also, what if there's not funding from city council to do this? What I think we need to stick to is let's make a motion and then what we require them to do is to meet with the traffic engineer and maybe there's a representative from the neighborhoods you want to meet with them. Yes. But we really can't enforce it. So let's try something like that. All right. What Jean said. Yeah, what you got? Well, I think it touches that a lot. I think on the whole request of the matter of what's enforceable, because a lot of the pros of like, oh, we're gonna build the greenway, but is that, is clear building the greenway? Is that in their project or is that we're allowing the greenway to pass over? And so when it's funded at some point in 20 years, then it will. And so that I'm just kind of trying to wrap my head around what we can have in our scope right now. I understood. Okay. All right. I'd like to make a motion. Let's make a motion. I withdraw my motion. Okay. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the special exception to establish the Clear Dot School with the condition that Clear Dot agrees to meet with the city of Columbia traffic engineer and any neighborhood association that might be a part of that meeting to discuss traffic calming measures. Second. Okay, we have Mosha second. All of them favor, please say aye. Aye. In your place. All right. Very good. Motion passes. You're watching the show. That's all for the evening, man. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.