By Shannon Lukens.
UPDATE at noon on Thursday: Pastor Jon Muhly with Concordia Lutheran Church says the space is being offered to Steamboat Christian Academy for one year. Church leadership worked with the SCA board, and brought it to the church congregation, which voted in late May to approve a one-year partnership. Muhly says they “value education highly,” and the Concordia church would be a “holding place” for the school until they could find another location. If it were to extend past one year, the congregation would have to vote to approve that extension.
The Steamboat Springs Planning Commission meets at 5 p.m. Thursday, July 10.
One agenda item is a request to add a Kindergarten through 8th grade private school at Concordia Lutheran Church off of Amethyst. It would be run by Steamboat Christian Academy. Brian Adams with APEX Architecture filed the application for Steamboat Christian Academy to begin holding classes in the fall of this year. The staff report is below.
There are three houses along the entrance to the parking lot at Concordia. Matt and Dana Tredway were in the first lot sold by Concordia back in 1989.
“They got a conditional use permit, in perpetuity, for the operation of a church, one day a week and that’s how we’ve all been living together. And now, we’re being told that they want to be able to run a five day a week educational school, which legally is a commercial business.”
“And I get it. As a former teacher, I’m pro education. I’m pro church. But maybe this is not the right spot. It kind of falls under that guise of just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
Dana Tredway says they waived the traffic study. She says it is zoned RN-1 which means Residential Neighborhood (single-family, low-density). The application says the property is developed and approved for a religious assembly use and zoned Residential Neighborhood-One.
The applicant is requesting Conditional Use approval for the school on site.
Forty students would be expected to attend and use five existing classrooms within the church, five days a week.
The application says staff supports the school and finds it meets the Criteria for Approval, and it should not have any adverse impacts.
From the report:
Staff Findings
Staff finds that PL20250199, application for an Elementary/Secondary School in the existing Concordia Lutheran Church, is CONSISTENT with the Criteria for Approval for a Conditional Use.
Recommended Motion Planning Commission approves PL20250199, a Conditional Use application for an Elementary/Secondary School in the existing Concordia Lutheran Church with the following condition:
- The maximum capacity of the school use is 40 students and five classrooms.
The letter from Apex Architecture says, “The use will operate within the existing buildings on the church campus during the week from 8:45 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. No noise impacts will occur while the students are inside the building, and when outside the building will be on the opposite side of the structure from the neighboring residential use.”
We have left messages with Steamboat Christian Academy and Concordia Lutheran Church and will update the story when we hear back.
