Looking for a home near Churchill Way? That area is about to get a whole lot more secure.
We told you how Alcuin School on Churchill Way offered an olive branch to its neighbors in the form of a private neighborhood patrol that will cost the school $1 million over a ten year commitment period, as well as many concessions relating to traffic mitigation.
All those moves must be a textbook example of How to Work With the Neighborhood: the Dallas City Council this morning approved Alcuin’s zoning request.
The negotiations and compromises have given Alcuin neighborhood support and respect for its reallocation plans, from neighbors and from the Dallas City Plan Commission. The Plan Commission voted unanimously last month to pass the school’s rezoning request, recommending a pass to the Dallas City Council.
District 11 plan commissioner Jaynie Schultz said she believes the zoning change and the way Alcuin handled it will ultimately make “our neighborhood stronger and safer together.”
The school, a private Montessori institution on Churchill Way between Preston Road and Hillcrest Road, wanted to expand its maximum number of upper-school students in its International Baccalaureate program from 35 to 135, and add grades 10 through 12 in high school over the next few years. This will comes after Alcuin ushered its first freshman class last fall.
Total student enrollment on campus will remain at no more than 700, although the school only has about 550 now.
Neighbors were opposed to the high school expansion because the presence of more high school students means that for the first time, there will be student drivers going to and from campus. Here is how the school mitigated that:
- The number of student drivers would be limited to 70.
- Student drivers would only have access to the campus from certain entry points.
- Total enrollment would be capped at 700.
- High school classes would begin and end 30 minutes later than other grades.
- Alcuin would fund a neighborhood patrol for 10 years at an estimated cost of $1 million.
Residents of Brittany Circle, a cul-de-sac with 16 lots just east of the Alcuin campus, uses Churchill as its only access point. Some residents complained to the Dallas Plan Commission in March that more traffic on Churchill was blocking their ingress and egress, and they were concerned that emergency vehicles would have difficulties getting to homes in the circle.
But apparently the schools massive olive branch eased those concerns. Even Bruce Wilke, president of the Hillcrest Forest Neighborhood Association, was satisfied.
“There’s been somewhat of a rocky history between the school and its neighbors,” he said “But we think this would benefit both the school and the neighborhood.”
