After hearing from residents concerned about expansion plans at Liberty Classical Academy, May Township officials decided last month to freeze applications for institutional and non-residential uses – and any associated facilities – within the township’s rural-residential zoning district.
Town Board Chairman John Pazlar said the one-year moratorium will give township officials a chance to study and revise the township’s rural-residential district code language, particularly those conditional uses that might be institution or commercial in nature, he said.
The rural township in northern Washington County is zoned one unit per 10 acres, but has been getting applications in recent years “for uses that tend to look institutional or commercial in nature … because of the large amount of undeveloped land out here in proximity to a large metropolitan area,” he said.
The latest application is from Liberty Classical Academy, a private Christian academy, which moved part of its lower-school programming two years ago to the former Withrow Elementary School building in neighboring Hugo.
School officials also bought the neighboring 88-acre Zahler farm for $1.5 million in transactions that occurred in November 2022 and January 2023, according to Washington County property records. Part of the farmland is in Hugo; the rest is in May Township.
Officials from Liberty, which currently splits its students between the former Withrow school and rented space at the Church of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, plan to build an approximately 33,500-square-foot building addition to the existing school and associated parking on the Withrow property. The Hugo City Council approved the expansion plans, which will effectively double the size of the school building, at its June 3 council meeting.
School officials have asked the May Township Board to approve a conditional-use permit for a sewage treatment system and stormwater management facilities that are proposed to be located on school property in the township.
The proposed sewage treatment system, which will service the existing school and proposed addition, also must be permitted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency since it would have a flow greater than 10,000 gallons per day. The new system is being built to handle up to 10,375 gallons per day, said Rebekah Hagstrom, the school’s founder and headmaster, “which is about the equivalent of 16 to 20 homes.”
Township officials have asked Liberty officials for an extension of the township’s 60-day review period on the school’s conditional-use permit application “to extend our review period to run concurrently with the moratorium,” Pazlar said. If school officials reject the request for an extension, the town board on Thursday night will be “compelled to take action on their permit request,” he said.
School officials believe all conditions of the conditional-use permit application have been met, and they expect the town board to vote on Thursday night, Hagstrom said.
“We were before the town board in May 2023 – a full 14 months ago – and they did not have any concerns at that time other than lighting,” she said. “Putting a moratorium in place in the face of a CUP application that has been well known to them since May 2023 is like changing the rules in the middle of a game, and it certainly isn’t a fair way to treat an applicant who cares about bringing an outstanding educational option to the community and who already owns all of their land and did all of their due diligence ahead of time.”
Neighbor concerns
An architectural rendering of Liberty Classical Academy’s plans for an approximately 33,500-square-foot addition to its existing school in Hugo. The school, which serves students from pre-kindergarten through second grade, is located on the former Withrow Elementary School property. (Courtesy of Liberty Classical Academy)
Neighbors who live in the area have expressed concerns about the school’s plans for future expansion, including an increase in traffic and the proposed subsurface sewage treatment system.
Pazlar, who has served on the town board for 25 years, said the topic has generated considerable public interest.
“We’ve had a volume of emails that I have never seen before and crowds at the town hall that exceed the size of any crowd I’ve seen previously,” he said. “They’re not necessarily opposed to the school, in fact, I think they have found the school to be a good neighbor. For many of them. I think the concern is what’s the right size in a rural-residential area.”
The moratorium, he said, gives township officials an opportunity to study whether that rural-residential zoning aligns with two important things: “One is what are the expectations of our citizens in terms of or what should be allowed in a rural-residential area, and does that code language align with our comprehensive plan?”
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The only piece of land in the township that is zoned commercial is the property owned by the Withrow Ballroom, he said. “That was done a long time ago as an accommodation for a business that had been around for 100 years,” he said.
The Metropolitan Council’s vision for May Township “for decades to come is to remain rural,” he said.
“People will tell you the reason they moved to May Township is its rural character, and they expect the town board to consistently defend that,” he said.
One member of the township’s three-man board, Don Rolf, will abstain from voting on Thursday due to a conflict of interest, said Town Clerk Bobbi Hummel. He works for Pope Design Group, the same firm hired by Liberty Classical Academy, she said.
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