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| | | Charter school's 12th Street NE row house location approved | | December 29, 2009 | | | | Staff Writer | | Now that the D.C. Public Charter School Board has approved AppleTree Institute’s plans to build a fourth campus in a row house on 12th Street NE, neighborhood commissioner David Holmes — who has vehemently opposed the school’s location — says there is little to be done about it.
“I don’t know where else we could go with it. We’ve got no complaints about the quality of the school. It’s just a horrible location,” he said.
The board approved the expansion on Dec. 21. The Northeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commission (ANC 6A) had continuously opposed the school’s location at 138 12th St.
Russ Williams, the school’s executive director, said it still has a lot of planning to do and financing to secure before it will set construction or move-in dates.
“Our position has always been that we’re looking forward to serving more children,” adding that the renovation of the row home was also approved by the city’s Historic Preservation Review Board. “They looked at the idea of a neighborhood-based school and there are folks that support that idea.”
The school’s purchase of the 90-year-old row house in July 2006 set off a chain of events that ultimately led the city to bar public charter schools from locating anywhere they choose in a residential district, a right that regular public schools still possess. But AppleTree, which wants to host at least 60 preschool students and 18 to 20 staffers in the row house it bought for $1.5 million, was grandfathered into the previous zoning code and now has a building permit in hand. Charter schools now have to abide by certain zoning rules such as having 120 feet of street frontage. AppleTree will have just 36 feet of frontage.
Though two neighborhood commissioners — Kelvin Robinson and Mary Beatty — supported the school’s location at the commission’s November meeting, the majority of commissioners continued to worry over the traffic and noise implications of a school moving in amidst a block of row houses.
“It’s a narrow street. It has no appropriate place for double parking. It is lined on three sides by commuter traffic in the morning. There’s no playground,” Holmes said. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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