Supporters of the Woodlan kindergarten-through-12th-grade campus project turned in more petition packets than their opponents by Tuesday’s deadline, according to voter registration officials.An Allen County couple has complained that Canterbury School committed a zoning violation when it moved its baseball field fence.
But the private school and the county’s zoning hearing officer say no violation occurred.
The Allen County Board of Zoning Appeals will consider the issue at its May 20 meeting.
Neighbors Gary and Carol Rhodes objected when Canterbury School moved the fence to make room for construction and maintenance traffic to reach sections of the Glendale Drive athletic complex, said Randy Kammeyer, the couple’s attorney.
Although the school moved the fence 15 feet away from the Rhodes’ adjoining property, the change left room for vehicle and walking traffic near the property line, he said.
Canterbury School created a gravel path there at one point but replanted grass after Gary Rhodes complained, Kammeyer said.
The couple don’t want traffic so close to their rural property’s backyard, Kammeyer said. A path wasn’t part of the athletic complex design the board approved two years ago.
“It’s not exactly what they bought into,” he said. The couple moved to their home in 1982, more than a decade before Canterbury School built the fields.
Canterbury School originally moved the fence to allow construction traffic to access the fields, Headmaster Jonathan Hancock said in a Feb. 17 letter to the board. The created open space is needed to move equipment and for emergency access, but he said the school will regulate the area to keep it from becoming a pedestrian pathway.
The school does not see any merit in the complaint, said Henry Najdeski, the attorney representing the school.
Zoning Hearing Officer Paul Blisk ruled in February that the school did not violate the board’s conditions of approval. Moving the fence did not expand the baseball field or harm the Rhodes’ property, he wrote in the decision.
But the 2007 board decision says any modifications or expansions would need to be approved by the board, Kammeyer said.
Canterbury School violated that condition by moving the fence, he said.
The board is scheduled to hear the appeal at 1 p.m. May 20 in Room 126 of the City-County Building.
