Photo by Jon Anderson.
A sign welcomes people to Trinity Presbyterian Church off Alabama 119, across from Tattersall Park.
The plan was to open a new Christian school with preschool to eighth grade classes on Aug. 11 on the campus of Trinity Presbyterian Church off Alabama 119, just across from Tattersall Park.
The vision was cast for Trinity Classical Academy, a school based on the ideas that shaped western civilization and taught in an unapologetically Christian manner.
More than 40 students from 22 families were enrolled. Teachers were hired. School choice money from the state was accepted. But there was one big problem — the church never got permission from the city of Hoover to operate a school on the property.
The 7-acre property is zoned as a C-2 commercial district in Hoover, but the church is allowed to operate there with “conditional use” approval. But there was no approval for a school, and opening a school there requires a new application with the city and approval by the Hoover City Council.
Church officials said they didn’t know they needed additional approval until they came to the city with questions about potentially altering a traffic light on Alabama 119.
By the time they learned about the zoning requirement, there was not enough time to go through the zoning process to get the required approval before the planned start of school on Aug. 11.
Hoover City Planner Mac Martin said that, because of all the required legal notifications for surrounding property owners, it usually takes about three months to go through the zoning process.
As an alternative and at a city official’s suggestion, the church decided to ask the Hoover City Council to deannex the property from the Hoover city limits so Hoover’s zoning rules wouldn’t apply. The church still would need “conditional use” approval from the Shelby County Planning Commission to operate a school there, but Shelby County officials said they would allow the school to operate on a temporary basis as long as the church filed a zoning application with the county.
That put the deannexation question to the Hoover City Council, and the City Council — the day before the scheduled start of school — said no. The vote was 5-1 not to allow the deannexation.
Councilman Robin Schultz said he received more input on this issue than anything else since he was elected last year and said residents were adamantly opposed to allowing the church to deannex from the city.
Most people were not really opposed to the school, but they were concerned that if the property were deannexed, the city of Hoover would lose control over what could go there, and that could lead to something with a less desirable use, Schultz said.
Rich Lusk, the pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church, said the church had no intention of using the property for anything else but a church and school and had no plans to sell the land to anyone else.
In fact, the church already has plans to build a new $13 million sanctuary there and already has raised $5 million to $6 million for that purpose, Lusk said. “We are committed to that location,” he said.
Hoover City Attorney Charlie Waldrep offered the council the option of deannexing the property with a restrictive covenant that said the property could be used only for a church or school and that gave the city of Hoover the first option to buy the property if the church ever decided to sell the land. But the council opted not to go that route.
Because the deannexation effort failed, Lusk said the church is proceeding with a “conditional use” application in Hoover. But the procedural delay forced the church to figure out another course of action to begin school.
Photo by Jon Anderson.
Church members at Trinity Presbyterian Church off Alabama 119 load up furniture and school supplies to move to a temporary school location until the church can get zoning approval for a new private school.
Jonathan Griffith, a church member, told the City Council on Aug. 10 that church officials had reached out to seven or eight local churches about hosting their school temporarily and as of that time had been told no. By the following weekend, the church had found another educational institution about a mile away in Shelby County zoned for school use. The start of school was delayed about a week. Church members packed up school supplies and furniture and moved them to the temporary location until the church can get “conditional use” approval for the school.
“We’re confident everything will work out, and we look forward to working with the city of Hoover,” Lusk said. “It was not about leaving Hoover. We just ran into this issue.”
With such a small school, he does not foresee any negative impact on the community — traffic or otherwise, he said.
