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Public hearing held on Pennington Traditional School expansion; council delays vote for more review
Summary
A public hearing on the Pennington Traditional School's request to expand classroom and administrative space drew questions about traffic, buses and construction impacts; the council closed the hearing and scheduled a vote at a future meeting.
City staff and the Planning Commission presented a special-use permit application March 10 for a classroom and administrative addition at Pennington Traditional School, 9305 Stonewall Road, but the City Council left the hearing open for further review and scheduled the item for a future vote.
The proposed addition would add music and arts classrooms, four standard classrooms and special-education rooms to an existing school on roughly 15 acres zoned R-1, family residential. Staff said the campus currently has about 72 parking spaces (with the possibility of 14 additional spaces depending on funding), that a traffic-impact analysis was not required, and that the plan includes dedication of right-of-way along Stonewall Road and Moseby Street for future improvements.
Staff recommended approval with conditions including a landscape buffer along the shared boundary with nearby residences; rebuilding a memorial garden; removal of existing modular classrooms after issuance of a new certificate of occupancy; a requirement that private student drop-off and pickup occur on-site; construction-site security during school activities; and two conditions added after the Planning Commission hearing to address noise mitigation and to require advance notice of construction activities.
Council members asked detailed questions about site access, stacking of buses and how construction would be staged during the school year. Councilmember Ocina and others pressed the applicant on whether the project would bring additional buses or increased traffic onto Stonewall Road and asked for clarity on how many students currently attend and how many could be accommodated after the build-out.
Applicant representatives from Prince William County Public Schools said the addition is intended to relieve constrained spaces where art and music are currently conducted "on a cart" and to provide dedicated rooms for band, strings and science so classrooms are no longer double-used. Architect Amy Olenek said several specialized rooms are currently sharing space and that the project is meant to give dedicated instructional space.
A nearby resident, Alan Muchnick, urged the council to consider adding a perpetual ADA-compliant pedestrian access easement between Stonewall Road and Mosby Street to improve interparcel connectivity and walking access to the school, noting nearby civic uses including the senior center and the county judicial complex. Mr. Muchnick also asked for more specificity about the right-of-way dedication mentioned in the application.
Councilmember Vasquez Luna voted against a motion to close the hearing and schedule a vote at the next regularly scheduled meeting; the remainder of the council voted to close the public hearing and move the matter to a future meeting for decision. Staff and the applicant will supply additional information requested by the council ahead of the vote.
