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Council approves Boca Raton Christian School enrollment increase and technical driveway deviations
Summary
After a quasi-judicial hearing, council approved a conditional-use amendment to allow Boca Raton Christian School to increase enrollment to 950 students and granted five technical driveway deviations; staff and the applicant said no new buildings are proposed and on-site queuing will contain pickup/drop-off activity.
The Boca Raton City Council approved a conditional-use amendment April 22 allowing Boca Raton Christian School to increase its maximum enrollment from 800 to 950 students and granted five technical deviations related to existing driveway design.
City planner Jacob Grama summarized staff's review, noting the school's approximately 19.84-acre site and that the 2008 phase-1 site plan improvements were not vested because required improvements were not completed. As a result, staff said the current entitlement remained at 800 students and the school requested a conditional-use amendment to permit a 150-student increase without new buildings.
Grama and other staff described traffic and queuing analyses showing the site provides substantial on-site stacking: staff said the applicant provided 117 stacking spaces with roughly 2,350 linear feet of queuing and two separate stacking lanes, exceeding the city requirement of 52 stacking spaces and 1,040 feet of queuing length. The application included a minor site-plan amendment for two modular buildings approved administratively in December 2024.
Applicant representatives (attorney Bonnie Miskell and Pastor Cameron Free) said the school has operated for more than 50 years and that the proposed increase allows continued operation consistent with the campus layout; traffic engineer John Donaldson presented double-stacking diagrams and said queuing capacity is ample. The applicant also requested five technical deviations under section 23-190(d) of the city code to leave existing driveways unchanged (reduced reservoir distances, medians, and egress lanes in some locations).
Council asked whether the existing driveway configurations would allow the school to operate similarly to current patterns; staff and applicant said operations would remain essentially the same and that conditions (pavement markings, staffing during peak hours) were included in the conditional-use resolution to assure safety. The Planning & Zoning Board recommended approval 5-0 on April 3, 2025; Development Services recommended approval as well.
Council adopted the conditional-use amendment and the technical deviations after a public hearing and motions to approve (votes recorded 5-0).
