By Joseph Haney The Lexington Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit to allow Yellow Brick Road to operate a second location in the rear portion of Lexington Presbyterian Church at its meeting on Feb. 13. The permit application will go to City Council for final approval at a future meeting.
The proposal is for enrollment of 34 students between 6 weeks and 4 years old, and a staff of 11 people. The child care will utilize the Randolph Street entrance into Murray Hall and will operate from 7:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Monday through Friday. Drop-off will be from 7:45 to 8:45 a.m. and pick-up times will be 3:30 to 4 p.m. and 4:45 to 5:15 p.m.
Both pick-up and drop-off will utilize the four on-street parking spaces in front of Murray Hall on Randolph Street, and Misty Camden, executive director of Yellow Brick Road, requested that those spots be changed to 10-minute parking from Monday through Friday. Currently, the spaces are marked as two-hour parking spaces.
City planner Arne Glaeser recommended to the Planning Commission that the parking be changed to 10-minute parking during the designated drop-off and pick-up times, but remain two-hour parking during the day.
Since decisions on the marking of parking spaces is the purview of the city manager and is therefore outside of the scope of the conditional use permit, he did not recommend adding it as a condition of the permit, but did request that Planning Commission make a recommendation in regard to the parking.
In response to questions from members of the Planning Commission, Camden explained that pick-up and drop-off at Yellow Brick Road’s primary facility for the 88 students that attend is “a steady roll of cars,” with parents pulling up and staff helping get the students out of the car and into the building. She added that she envisioned a similar system being implemented at the new location, but did express concern that having the spaces in front of Murray Hall be two-hour parking outside of the designated pick-up and drop-off times could have an impact if the school had a delayed opening or early release.
“What we see here is that we’re definitely going to have to make sure that there’s a strategic way to drop off and pick up, so that [parents] won’t have to circle the block if parking spaces are full,” she said. “We may need to develop a strategic plan to possibly have parents park [elsewhere] and come and pick up if that’s the recommendation.”
Leon Johenning, who owns adjacent properties to the proposed location, expressed concern about safety of dropping off and picking up 34 students on Randolph Street.
“Randolph Street is a very busy street. Everybody’s playing a game of ballet trying to get in and out, so I’m concerned that 34 young people have to be delivered and picked up in the evening,” he said.
Johenning recommended that a traffic study should be done to assess the safety and proposed having a school safety officer on-site to “resolve any problems.” He also suggested that the recently vacated Mountain Gateway Community College building outside of Buena Vista may be a better location for a day care facility.
Leslie Straughan, who serves as the City Council’s liason on the Planning Commission, proposed a compromise to the parking situation by having one of the four parking spots be designated as 10-minute parking all day and the others only be 10-minute parking during the pick up and drop off hours.
“We may have a few bumps getting used to the drop-off and pick-up, but I really don’t see that being a big problem,” she said. “It’s a short period of time, not during the busiest time of the day. I think this is a wonderful option and I really appreciate the Presbyterian Church working with Yellow Brick Road to provide child care for our community.”
Jon Eastwood thanked Johenning for expressing his concerns about safety, but acknowledged that Yellow Brick Road is “a responsible and professional organization with a track record of handling drop off.” He also spoke about the benefits of Yellow Brick Road expanding their operation to a second location.
“This is really important for the community,” he said. “If you spend time in the community with young families, this is something you just hear about constantly. It stops people from being able to work, or it just makes their lives complicated, costly, affects their choices [and] makes their welfare worse, so I’m certainly going to support this.”
Eastwood made the motion to approve the conditional use permit, with Krista Anderson providing the second. Straughan then moved to make the recommendation that one of the parking spaces in question be made a 10-minute space all day, with the others only being 10-minute parking during the designated pick-up and drop-off times, which Tori Bates seconded. Both motions passed in unanimous 7-0 votes.
