Boulder County Commissioners Give Conditional Approval to Hillside School Expansion

On Wednesday, July 7, Boulder County Commissioners Claire Levy, Matt Jones and Marta Loachamin conditionally approved the proposed modifications to Hillside School in Gunbarrel, subject to additional conditions drafted during the hearing.

The original Special Review and Site Specific Development Plan (SU-03-09), submitted in March 2022, proposed modifications to the school, located at 7415 Lookout Road, to include a new 10,500-square-foot school building with 12 new classrooms for up to 68 students. After reviewing the original proposal, staff of the Boulder County Planning Commission sent out 531 notifications to community members to gather feedback.

Of the 35 responses received, 23 supporters indicated that the school needed to expand to serve more families. There were 12 dissenters whose concerns included traffic impacts, increased noise, visual impacts due to building height and design, and decreased property values. To address these concerns, the proposal was revised to include phased construction of a new school building and reconstruction of an existing school building, for a total floor area of 14,284 square feet, containing 13 total classrooms for up to 136 students (68 during a morning session, and 68 during an afternoon session).

Hillside School was founded in 2005 and moved to its current location at 7415 Lookout Road in 2017. According to Jill Michaud, head of the school, the community had a need for a school setting for academic intervention for students with dyslexia, a condition which impacts one in five children. Although dyslexia is considered a lifelong condition, Michaud explained, there are effective intervention programs that help these students acquire the foundational literacy skills they need to be effective in school and later in life.

Hillside provides a half-day program that focuses on individualized instruction of reading, written language, and math to small groups. "Intervention is important to build student confidence and self-esteem," Michaud said. "Some kids are well-adjusted but find out they have trouble learning. This chips away at their self-esteem. Some kids who are 8, 9, and 10 years old have depression and anxiety. Expansion will allow the school to spread out wider and have a greater impact to connect parents and students together."

Plans to enlarge the school have been underway for several years. In September 2019 the school engaged CADIS Collaborative Architecture to kick off the design process and the plans have been modified several times. Emotional testimony from students, community members and parents during the allotted time for public comment at the hearing emphasized the value of the school and the role it has played in student success. Kym Hanslerm, parent of a Hillside student and a resident of the neighborhood, expressed her strong support for the expansion. "Parking spots and views are not worth helping Hillside save even one kid. If they could expand, I would give them my house. They could have the whole neighborhood," Hanslerm said, "because it makes all the difference in the world."

Commissioner Levy stated her appreciation for the school's approach to working with students with dyslexia but made it clear that the hearing was not about the value of what the school does. "It is a land use decision about impacts, regardless of the nature of the school," Levy said.

During the hearing, Community Planning and Permitting staff planner Samuel Walker presented revised draining and grading plans, floor plans, landscaping plans and other documents to the Board of County Commissioners, who had an opportunity to discuss the land-use proposal and ask questions.

The commissioners posed a few questions about landscaping, lighting, and noise, but the key issue the three Commissioners shared focused on traffic and parking. According to existing code, based on the size of the school, 48 parking spaces would be required to support the expansion.

Currently the school has 19 on-site spaces, and there is an agreement between the school and the neighboring Niwot United Methodist Church, which allows Church parking spaces to be used to meet the need of the school parking requirement. These Church parking spaces are integral to the new plan, which increases the number of total classrooms and includes a high-school age classroom, which in turn increases the parking requirement.

Commissioner Levy questioned what might happen if either property changed hands, and asked whether the existing parking agreement would "run with the land." The school responded that the existing agreement is not an easement or license to use the parking lot, but simply an agreement between two entities to allow shared use of the church parking lot at this time.

Commissioners Jones and Loachamin expressed similar concerns and asked for some assurance there would be adequate parking to support the expansion. Liana James. Assistant County Attorney, noted that condition 10A of the approval requires 48 designated spaces for the school including, those at the church. If the school no longer had access to church spaces, that would be considered a zoning violation. Commissioner Jones responded that in such a situation the school would have to reduce the number of students or close its doors. "But your option is to tell them to shut down," Jones said. "That doesn't seem like much of a remedy."

Commissioner Levy concurred. "In the middle of an academic year you cannot reduce the classroom size. You don't know how effective this will be." Levy suggested requiring that the school get an easement on the church parking lot that would be recorded and transferred with the land. If the use of the school changed, the easement would be terminated," Levy said. "That would provide more certainty and durability." At this point in the discussion, James recommended that the Commissioners go into executive session to discuss other options and obtain legal advice, and the Commissioners agreed.

When the meeting reconvened, Walker introduced new language in the conditions of approval that addressed the concerns expressed by the Commissioners. The revised conditions included the following:

10. At building permit submittal, the applicant must submit a revised parking plan for approval by the Community Planning & Permitting Department that includes:

a. Confirmation of long-term legal access to 48 parking spaces. If, in the future, the applicant does not have legal access to 48 parking spaces, the applicant must notify the Community Planning & Permitting Department and the number of students must be modified before the start of the upcoming school year to conform with the requirements of the Boulder County Land Use Code.

d. Clear identification of where students will be dropped-off/picked-up and a traffic circulation pattern for vehicles used during drop-off/pick-up that demonstrates that student drop-off/pick-up will not disrupt traffic flow on Lookout Road. If the drop-off/pick-up location(s) will be located off site, the plan must identify how students will get from those locations to the main entrance of the school.

Commissioner Levy moved that the Board conditionally approve Docket 0005 subject to conditions 1 through 18 presented in the planning staff recommendations, and condition number 10 amended as presented during the hearing. The commissioners all voted in favor, and the meeting adjourned at 2:45. A recording of the complete hearing is available online at:https://pub-bouldercounty.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=6e4d08ae-5a88-47ef-adbd-0e8e52028e5a&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English