Saratoga Springs council approves rezoning and site plan for new ASD High School 722

Saratoga Springs — The City Council on March 24 unanimously approved a package of actions to accommodate Alpine School District’s new high school (project number 722), authorizing a general plan land-use amendment to “institutional civic,” rezoning, and a development agreement that lays out responsibility for off-site infrastructure. The council separately approved the school’s preliminary plat and site plan.

City planner David presented the request, telling the council the application converts parcels at the northwest corner of Enzy Drive and the Mountain View Corridor from planned community and agricultural designations to an institutional civic classification to allow a public high school. David said the district’s submitted concept design includes a school building roughly 350,000 square feet and a campus layout the district expects to develop in phases.

Alpine School District representative Frank Pulley told councilors that the district uses a numeric project identifier for tracking, explaining, “All of our schools get an identifying number that we use throughout its entire life for really for mostly accounting purposes,” and that “722” is such an identifier.

Council members raised infrastructure questions; city staff and the applicant described negotiations recorded in the development agreement over secondary water, off-site road work and signalization. City staffer Jeremy summarized the negotiated approach: the church/landowner agreed to construct a new secondary water pond before the school connects to the system, the school district will build certain collector roads and the Mountain View/Enzy signal, and the city will build and then reimburse or be reimbursed proportionately on other improvements.

“We made a really exhaustive effort to identify what’s fair and proportionate based on their impacts,” Jeremy said, describing a negotiated split of responsibilities and reimbursement terms included in the development agreement.

Council members pressed the district on parking and portable-classroom impacts. Staff noted the site plan shows 1,276 parking stalls, a number the planner said is among the largest for recent district high school projects; the applicants said portables would reduce available parking and that any future portable deployment would require addressing parking at that time.

Several councilors voiced concerns about neighborhood impacts from sports facilities sited near homes; district staff said the stadium and field sit below adjacent houses in the site’s topography, which staff expects will reduce noise and visual impacts. Councilors also asked staff to study separated bike facilities on Enzy Drive to improve active-transportation access to the campus.

Council Member Wilson moved approval of the general plan amendment, rezoning and development agreement; Council Member Barton seconded. The council voted by roll call — Wadman, Barton, Davenport, Taylor and Wilson — and the motion passed unanimously.

For the accompanying preliminary plat and site plan, Council Member Davenport moved approval, Council Member Wadman seconded, and the council again voted unanimously.

What happens next: the council’s approvals leave final construction drawings and engineering red-line items to subsequent engineering review and stamping; staff noted some approvals lapse if follow-up work is not completed within code timelines. The development agreement includes language for transition of responsibilities if the district governance changes: the agreement specifies transfer to the new Lake Mountain School District leadership once that district formally assumes jurisdiction over the area.

Authorities referenced: state statute limits on municipal regulation of school-site design and code sections of Saratoga Springs Title 19 governing land use and site-plan standards (as cited in staff reports).