Midlands school wants to connect neighborhood to football stadium, despite outcry
Will a neighborhood near Gray Collegiate Academy become an exit for War Eagle football games?
The possibility is raising concerns from residents living near the West Columbia charter school and sending the proposal ping-ponging between Lexington County Council and its planning commission.
The school is asking for an additional access road to its athletic facilities for football, softball, baseball and soccer. Those fields sit behind Gray’s West Columbia campus at the end of one narrow drive. Now the school wants an additional exit that would connect with the end of Allendale Drive in an adjoining residential neighborhood.
That would require a change in the area’s zoning, but residents worry it create a traffic backlog on their neighborhood streets on game nights.
At a Nov. 20 meeting of the Lexington County Planning Commission, Jay Ragley, a consultant with the school, said the second exit was needed in case of emergencies that occur during well-attended games at the athletic field, and require quicker movement.
“It’s not going to be an exit all the time. The gates will be locked,” Ragley told the Planning Commission. “If you’ve got a football game, you’ll have between 1,000 and 1,500 people there, and the only way in or out is the road to the school property. There’s not a ton of shoulder on that. There’s no way an ambulance would be able to get out.”
Gray Principal Brian Newsome told county council on Tuesday that last year a player broke his leg during a JV football game, and it took 20 minutes and moving several cars before the ambulance could reach the stadium.
But the Planning Commission was skeptical of how limited usage of the exit would be. County staff said they have no way of enforcing limitations on when the exit could be opened to traffic once the zoning classification is changed. Lexington County Council could revoke the change, but not before the same review process that accompanies any other zoning change.
Speakers at a previous public hearing raised concerns about traffic, noise and safety on residential streets that lack sidewalks.
“If I lived in that neighborhood, and I’ve driven these streets many a time, I would never want a football stadium’s worth of traffic coming through my community,” said commission member Keith Frost, before the commission voted unanimously to reject the school’s rezoning request.
Newsome told council members on Tuesday that Gray has limited ability to expand access to its athletic venues otherwise. The unpaved road running back from the school is bordered on either side by a wetland and a gas line.
“There will be no more growth, we can’t get larger,” Newsome said. “Growth will be at the Irmo campus. New kids are all going to Irmo, because there’s no other option.”
Councilwoman Beth Carrigg said neighbors’ concerns could be alleviated if the affected roadways could be improved with the expectation that more traffic could be coming through the area.
“I understand that in a neighborhood, where children play, you don’t want traffic after a game at night running through the neighborhood,” she said. The addition of sidewalks in the neighborhood “might go a long way to alleviate those safety concerns.”
The council sent the issue back to the Planning Commission for reconsideration, although council members will ultimately have the final say on the zoning approval.
Gray Collegiate has developed a reputation as a sports powerhouse since it opened in 2014. The War Eagles have wrapped up an enviable level of success in recent years, drawing opposition from some other schools that say the charter has an unfair advantage over traditional schools because of it isn’t restricted to traditional district attendance zones for its student body.
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