Schools
St. Patrick School Expansion Gets OK from Zoning Board
Catholic school plans to add new preschool building
St. Patrick School is one step further in its plans to launch a preschool program after the Kent Board of Zoning Appeals approved a setback variance for a new school building.
St. Patrick School educates students from kindergarten through eighth grade. The variance will allow construction of a new, two-story building for a preschool program at the southwest corner of the property where North Depeyster Street intersects with an alley.
A detached garage now at the site planned for the new building will be razed; the variance from the 30-foot front-yard setback required by zoning code grants permission for the preschool to be built eight feet from the front property line along the alley.
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Angela Davis, preschool representative for St. Patrick School, said on the opposite side of the alley is a parking lot for the school.
"I don’t see a problem with it. It’s not going to impede anybody’s view," said zoning board member Dave Mail.
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Eric Newland, acting architect on the project, said the alley is lightly traveled.
"They’re not immediately in a residential area, but it is in a residential district," said zoning board member Elizabeth Howard.
With no public comment offered in support of or in protest to the request, zoning board members voted 3-0 to approve the setback variance. Zoning board members Paul Sellman and Steve Balazs were absent from the meeting.
In previous years, the school unsuccessfully sought to begin a preschool, first in the music building and later inside the school building.
"This is our third attempt to try to get a preschool established," Principal John Mazan said.
Plans for the two-story preschool building include classrooms for students, ages 3, 4 and 5, with an open-space, multiple-purpose room on the ground floor that will be used by preschool students and for community events and other functions after school hours.
"We need to raise all of the funds ourselves to build it," said Davis, the parent of three students who attend St. Patrick School.
With fundraising for the project still ahead, a time frame for completion of the approximately 7,000-square-foot preschool is not yet known. The project will go before the city's planning commission at a future date.