Longtime boarding school seeks formal permits

MILLERTON — Representatives of a historic boarding school are seeking formal permits from the North East Planning Board in an effort to comply with state requirements.

Ray Nelson — a Millerton-based engineer who spoke on behalf of boarding school Olivet Academy — described the school’s need for an official special use permit at a rescheduled regular meeting of the Planning Board on Wednesday, May 27.

Nelson said the property’s change of ownership six years ago triggered a New York State Department of Education requirement that all paperwork, including certificates of occupancy and permits, be held under Olivet’s name.

Olivet Academy is a Christian boarding school that primarily serves students from South Korea. The academy is part of a larger family of boarding schools with locations in Missouri, California and South Korea.

The school currently operates out of a campus in the Town of North East near the intersection of Morse Hill Road, Perrys Corners Road and Haight Road. Boarding schools have operated on the campus since the 1940s, Nelson said. The campus’s long history predates building and zoning codes, meaning many of the structures did not require formal permits in the past because they haven’t been altered since their construction.

It’s unclear why the school is now required to receive this documentation.

A special use permit is required for schools located in a residential agricultural district in the Town of North East. No special use permit has been issued for the property in the past because many of the facilities predate zoning.

Deliberation on the special use permit had to be delayed as the school had yet to receive proper approvals from the town’s building inspector. Planning Board chair Dale Culver explained the board cannot grant permits before the building inspector has issued certificates of occupancy.

The property will also have to receive approval from the Dutchess County Department of Health for septic systems that lack formal documentation.

Given those missing details, board members declined to move forward with the application, opting to wait until their next meeting to see if the necessary documents are complete before scheduling a public hearing.

Culver said he wants this application to serve as a precedent under the town’s new zoning code. North East adopted changes to its zoning codes in March after a years-long process of revisions and updates aimed at modernizing language, improving information organization and encouraging further commercial and mixed-use development along Route 44 east of the Village of Millerton.

Olivet’s plans don’t include any changes to the property, just a formal documentation of the site’s structures and uses in an effort to comply with state regulations. Because there are no proposed changes, Culver said he thought it would be inappropriate to require the school to update things like outdoor lighting as that would impose work at the school that the applicants were not already planning to do.

“We could point out that in the future — if you’re going to make changes — these may be some of the areas of concern,” Culver said. “I don’t think we should attach onerous costs to something as simple as ‘we need to document what already is there.’”By Nathan Miller

nathanm@millertonnews.com

MILLERTON — Representatives of a historic boarding school are seeking formal permits from the North East Planning Board in an effort to comply with state requirements.

Ray Nelson — a Millerton-based engineer who spoke on behalf of boarding school Olivet Academy — described the school’s need for an official special use permit at a rescheduled regular meeting of the Planning Board on Wednesday, May 27.

Nelson said the property’s change of ownership six years ago triggered a New York State Department of Education requirement that all paperwork, including certificates of occupancy and permits, be held under Olivet’s name.

Olivet Academy is a Christian boarding school that primarily serves students from South Korea. The academy is part of a larger family of boarding schools with locations in Missouri, California and South Korea.

The school currently operates out of a campus in the Town of North East near the intersection of Morse Hill Road, Perrys Corners Road and Haight Road. Boarding schools have operated on the campus since the 1940s, Nelson said. The campus’s long history predates building and zoning codes, meaning many of the structures did not require formal permits in the past because they haven’t been altered since their construction.

It’s unclear why the school is now required to receive this documentation.

A special use permit is required for schools located in a residential agricultural district in the Town of North East. No special use permit has been issued for the property in the past because many of the facilities predate zoning.

Deliberation on the special use permit had to be delayed as the school had yet to receive proper approvals from the town’s building inspector. Planning Board chair Dale Culver explained the board cannot grant permits before the building inspector has issued certificates of occupancy.

The property will also have to receive approval from the Dutchess County Department of Health for septic systems that lack formal documentation.

Given those missing details, board members declined to move forward with the application, opting to wait until their next meeting to see if the necessary documents are complete before scheduling a public hearing.

Culver said he wants this application to serve as a precedent under the town’s new zoning code. North East adopted changes to its zoning codes in March after a years-long process of revisions and updates aimed at modernizing language, improving information organization and encouraging further commercial and mixed-use development along Route 44 east of the Village of Millerton.

Olivet’s plans don’t include any changes to the property, just a formal documentation of the site’s structures and uses in an effort to comply with state regulations. Because there are no proposed changes, Culver said he thought it would be inappropriate to require the school to update things like outdoor lighting as that would impose work at the school that the applicants were not already planning to do.

“We could point out that in the future — if you’re going to make changes — these may be some of the areas of concern,” Culver said. “I don’t think we should attach onerous costs to something as simple as ‘we need to document what already is there.’”