By Alyssa Schnugg
News editor
The Oxford School District was granted a variance by the Oxford Planning Commission Monday which is the first step in creating a new student pick-up and drop-off system at Bramlett Elementary.
The school will also be building a new school building on the campus to accommodate 13 additional classrooms.
While adding these new classrooms, OSD intends to perform significant site renovations to make onsite parking more efficient/accessible and to allow more cars to enter the site for morning drop-off and afternoon pickup, which will greatly reduce the number of cars that currently back up on Bramlett Blvd.
The project will change the point of student drop-off and pickup so that it occurs on the west side of the site adjacent to the proposed building that houses the 13 new classrooms.
Cars will continue to enter the campus from Bramlett Boulevard, but will then loop through the campus via a newly constructed carpool lane that is routed north of the campus and west of the proposed building.
Since the terrain along the proposed carpool lane drops significantly away from the existing campus to the north, a retaining wall is required to minimize disturbance of the natural terrain and tree canopy, as well as reduce potential runoff issues for neighboring properties during and after construction.
The school is zoned Traditional Suburban Residential, where retaining walls are limited to 6-feet in height and must be 20 feet apart. The OSD asked for a variance to allow a 2-foot variance to create two 8-feet walls that will be 10 feet apart,
The commission approved the variance unanimously.
The OSD will return to the Planning Commission in May to present the entire site plan for the new building and classrooms and the final design of the drop-off/pick-up lanes.
