Neighbors concerned over plans for a charter school in Columbia, SC’s Elmwood Park
A few years ago, a Columbia charter school group attempted to establish a campus along Main Street, north of Elmwood Avenue, an effort that ultimately didn’t come to fruition.
That school is once again looking to set up a campus in an area north of Elmwood, and a neighborhood group is hoping the school will hit the brakes on the project until traffic and other concerns can be addressed.
The city of Columbia’s board of zoning appeals was set to consider a zoning exception request that would allow for Clear Dot Charter School to build a campus on about 17 acres of land that would be accessed off the 600 block of Elmwood Avenue. The land, which is comprised of several parcels, is just west of Wayne Street and just southeast of Lindsay Street, primarily in the Elmwood Park neighborhood.
The item was initially listed on the zoning board’s Oct. 7 agenda. However, the request has since been deferred from the Oct. 7 agenda, though it could come up again at a later date.
In 2018 and 2019, deep discussions were held about Clear Dot establishing a campus at 2222 Main St., which is the former location of Jim Moore Cadillac. Clear Dot is a public charter school authorized through the Charter Institute at Erskine and associated with Florida-based education services provider Academica.
But residents in Cottontown and other nearby neighborhoods were fiercely opposed, with concerns about traffic and other headaches that might come with what was then planned to be a $20 million school campus on a 5-acre site.
The deal for the school on the property didn’t come to pass — unrelated plans call for putting 246 apartments on the site — and Clear Dot ultimately established a campus on Marion Avenue, south of Elmwood. Clear Dot principal Lindsey Ott said Tuesday there are about 315 students at the school, in kindergarten through eighth grade.
According to paperwork filed with the city’s zoning department, the Clear Dot campus off Elmwood Avenue would be an “extension” of its current Marion Street campus. Under that set-up, the Marion Street facility would be for students in kindergarten through second grade, while the Elmwood facility would be for students from third through 12th grade.
The paperwork says the campus would include “athletic facilities, designated areas for the school agricultural program, and ample outdoor learning space.” The zoning application indicates there would be plans for 1,050 students, but Ott told The State the number on the Elmwood campus could likely be closer to 900.
But area residents are beginning to express concerns about the project. On the community Facebook page for the Earlewood neighborhood, which is just north of Elmwood Park, posts indicate neighbors are worried about traffic, the sustainability of the school and the overall impact that a new facility with nearly 1,000 students would have on the neighborhoods.
Elmwood Park Neighborhood Association president John Wilkinson told The State on Tuesday that the association asked the charter school to delay going before the city zoning board. Wilkinson said the biggest reason the association wanted the item to be deferred is that a traffic study had not yet been completed for the project.
“We were somewhat surprised that they went ahead and applied for their special exception, especially considering that they haven’t completed the traffic study and they cannot demonstrate what the impact of traffic will be on the neighborhood,” Wilkinson said on Tuesday. “We are not anti-development as a neighborhood, as long as it is compatible and enhances the neighborhood. But, where we are situated, with major traffic generators, it could have an enormous impact on the neighborhood.”
Ott told The State she believes the 17-acre site will be able to accommodate traffic for the school in a manner that wouldn’t be bad for the nearby neighborhoods. She said the school has hired a traffic engineer and will coordinate with the state Department of Transportation on the traffic study, but that study had not been completed as of Tuesday afternoon.
Emily Burn, president of the nearby Earlewood Neigborhood Association, said she also is worried about the Clear Dot project and its “potential for an adverse impact on traffic in the neighborhood.” While school officials have said traffic will enter and exit via a long driveway accessed from Elmwood Avenue, Burn notes that site plans also show a vehicle entryway on Park Street. Although Ott insists that there will be a gate at that entrance and that it would only be for emergency vehicles, Burn said she worries that in the future it would be used for student drop-off and pickup.
Ott said the school wants to locate in the North Main Street and Elmwood Park area because many of the school’s students live nearby.
“Those are the students that need our services,” Ott said. “That’s where a large majority of our population of students come from. Additionally, a lot of parents who work at Prisma Health or other large employers downtown drive through that way on the way to work, and want to send their children to school near where they work, as opposed to on the outskirts of town.”
This story was updated to note the item was deferred from the zoning board agenda.
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 9:46 AM.
