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Commission denies Lighthouse Private Christian Academy’s request to expand campus buildings
Summary
After hours of public comment about traffic, site plan and neighborhood compatibility, the county commission denied Lighthouse Private Christian Academy’s conditional-use request to add multiple classroom and vocational buildings; the zoning board’s earlier recommendation and local residents’ concerns factored into the decision.
The Santa Rosa County commission denied a conditional-use request from Lighthouse Private Christian Academy to expand its Milton campus with multiple small classroom and vocational buildings.
Opponents said the location and likely traffic impacts made the site inappropriate for expansion. Janet Coulter, a nearby resident, cited county code criteria under the Land Development Code and urged commissioners to respect neighborhood character: “The zoning district and use table…states that public...educational institutions are allowed…this campus is at the wrong location,” she said, reading from a prepared statement and referencing section 5.075’s site-location standards. Residents worried the expansion would bring as many as 150–200 students into a primarily residential area.
School representatives, including Colin Hendrickson and Joanna Johannes, said the project focuses on vocational training and moving existing students from a satellite church site to the larger campus. Hendrickson described the plan as “9 little small classrooms” plus a restroom/septic building and said the site sits on five acres with two acres left undisturbed. After deliberation over traffic, site-plan requirements and the zoning-board record, a board member moved to deny the conditional use; the motion was recorded and the denial carried without recorded objection.
