A church on the Highway 6 frontage road is asking College Station to rezone its property so a preschool it hosts on weekdays can legally operate there.
The Planning and Zoning Commission holds a public hearing on the request at its 6 p.m. meeting Thursday in the City Council chambers at City Hall, 1101 Texas Ave. The City Council is scheduled to make the final decision Nov. 23, though the agenda notes that date could change.
The request
Aldersgate Church of the Brazos Valley owns about 10 acres at 2201 Earl Rudder Freeway South, in the Windwood area. The land is zoned GS General Suburban, a district that allows a place of worship but not a day care facility, according to the staff report by planner Garrett Segraves.
The church recently began running a commercial day care inside the building on weekdays, the report says, and the rezoning to GC General Commercial would make the current use legal under the city's development code. General Commercial zoning would allow both uses.
In its application, the church wrote that for the previous eight years it partnered with a school whose mission fit the church's Christian education purpose, with no problems for traffic or neighbors, and that it expects the same from its new preschool partnership.
How staff sees it
Staff recommends approval. The city's Comprehensive Plan already designates the site for General Commercial use, and the report notes the property fronts a freeway and has adequate water and sewer service and no floodplain.
The neighbors are a mix. Homes zoned General Suburban sit to the north and east. A restaurant and a store on commercial zoning are to the southeast, and Post Oak Mall and Wolf Pen Creek zoning lie across Highway 6 to the west and south. Staff argued the change fits the area and gives families in the adjoining subdivision a nearby child care option.
