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Planning panel recommends rezoning for Apparo Academy expansion to serve more children with special needs
Summary
The commission recommended rezoning 5.32 acres at 3118 Skinner Mill Circle to allow Apparo Academy to expand into an early-intervention elementary campus with therapy services; staff attached conditions including buffers, lighting direction, and site-plan compliance before construction.
Augusta — The Augusta Planning Commission on Jan. 6 recommended approval to rezone 5.32 acres at 3118 Skinner Mill Circle to allow Apparo Academy to establish a private, specialized early-intervention elementary school and therapy clinic.
Development services staff described the proposal as consistent with the 2023 comprehensive plan for the West Augusta character area and said traffic engineering determined a traffic study was unnecessary. Staff’s recommended conditions required substantial conformance to the submitted concept plan, downward-directed lighting, compliance with the Augusta tree ordinance, 20-foot vegetative buffers, and site-plan approval prior to construction.
Jennifer Jones, founder and executive director of Apparo Academy, told commissioners the applicant scaled the plan back from a middle- and high-school concept to an elementary-focused campus after a feasibility study and said the change improved building plans. Jones said the academy currently employs 23 therapists serving about 275 children weekly and reported that "55 percent of the children who leave our academy now at the kindergarten age no longer need therapy services," a claim she framed as evidence of the program’s effectiveness and a reason to expand services locally to address long therapy wait lists.
Commissioners moved to approve the rezoning with the staff conditions; the planning commission’s recommendation will be forwarded to the full Augusta Commission for final action on Jan. 20.
