The Tooele County Planning Commission gave its approval to a plat amendment that will clear the way for Excelsior Academy to purchase a five-acre lot for school expansion.
Property owners in the area adjacent to Excelsior Academy at 124 E. Erda Way agreed to boundary changes in their parcels to create a five-acre parcel to the east of the existing school building.
The zoning in the area is RR-5, so the parcel needed to be a minimum of five acres, according to Tooele County Planner Jason Losee.
The State Charter School Board and the Utah State Board of Education have already approved plans for Excelsior Academy to increase enrollment from its current 697 students to 1,215 students beginning in the fall of 2018, according to Stephanie Eccles, Excelsior Academy’s school director.
The plan is to house the elementary students, kindergarten through fifth grade, in the existing building. A new building will be built on the five acres east of the current school to house middle school students in sixth through eighth grades, according to Eccles.
The planning commission quizzed Excelsior officials and their construction manager on the school’s plans for stormwater runoff, traffic patterns for student drop off and pick up, and improvements to Erda Way.
The original site plan for the five acres with the new building included a 10-foot wide paved pathway for walking and bicyclists parallel to Erda Way to meet the general plan for Erda. However, after discussion with county planning staff, Excelsior officials agreed to put a five-foot pathway in front of both the new and the existing buildings while agreeing to a right-of-way for further expansion of the pathway to 10 feet in the future, according to Tooele County Planner Jeff Miller.
Planning commission member Larry Brown expressed concern over congestion on Erda Way before and after school. He asked if the county could require the school to widen and improve Erda Way as part of the new construction.
Miller answered that state regulations restrict what the county can require of schools. One of the things the county cannot require is the widening of Erda Way, he said.
Charter schools are publicly funded independent schools authorized by the Utah State School Board. They are public and open to all students, charge no tuition and have no geographic boundaries for attendance. They receive funding from the state based on enrollment. Charter schools also receive a portion of the property tax levied by their local school district.
If more students apply to attend a charter school than its capacity allows, selection of students is done by lottery.
Excelsior Academy was the first charter school in Tooele County. It opened in fall 2009.