Residents who live near Mount Vernon School vented their frustrations over the installation of athletic field lighting and other issues during a recent community meeting.
The meeting, held at the school on Feb. 1, was required before Mount Vernon could apply for a conditional use permit amendment with the city of Sandy Springs to install lights on an existing athletic field.
“We have not yet filed a conditional use permit, but we intend to do so,” incoming Head of School Kristy Lundstrom said during the meeting. “This is the first meeting where we can continue to gather feedback from our neighbors that would inform our application.”
While the main topic of the meeting was the lighting issue, Lundstrom said she wanted to discuss all the ways the school impacts the community, including traffic, noise, and security.
Kimberly Oliver, president of the Mount Vernon Woods Community Association, told Lundstrom and officials that the large crowd was dressed in red as a symbol of the school’s broken promises to residents.
Oliver said traffic on Vernon Woods Drive is so congested in the afternoon that residents are unable to leave the neighborhood.
Lundstrom said she spoke with the Sandy Springs Police Department to find solutions to traffic problems. She said the school could not install traffic signs on the public right of way, and asked residents if they would allow signs to be installed on their property to help improve the flow of traffic.
Lundstrom said the school will work to prevent “stacking” events that increase crowds and add more traffic. School drop-off schedules and traffic flow will be changed to move more of the waiting vehicles onto the campus and off the neighborhood streets. Events will be scheduled so they don’t conflict with the start and end of the school day.
She said Mount Vernon wants to limit the impact it has on the community, but noted the two campuses are at capacity with 1,250 students.
Lundstrom invited homeowners to join a small working group with representatives from all neighborhood associations to sit down and create an agreement that covers the entire 40-acre campus.
“We have students from grade five up to grade 12 who want to play sports. We want them to stay on campus,” Lundstrom said. “Currently, many of them leave and go to other fields across Sandy Springs.”
To do that, she said the school needs to install two additional fields and install lights to extend the existing field’s use. This becomes especially important during winter months when it gets dark much earlier, Lundstrom said.
Josiah Smith of Musco Lighting told the community members his company would install lights so they shine on the field instead of neighbors’ properties.
Alan Wieczynski of Breedlove Land Planning said improved landscaping in the buffer area between the field and residential lots would help screen the brightly lit fields.
“All around the campus, there’s a 25-foot natural buffer that by zoning by code has to be maintained. But we’re identifying certain ways to enhance it,” he said.
Lundstrom said the audio system for the athletic field would be limited for use to 10 times per year, with five of those dates for the football team’s home games. The other dates would be for spring events such as graduation and senior events.
Field use would be limited to Monday through Friday with lights on no later than 10 p.m., she said.
Several community members said they couldn’t trust that promise because the school already allows use of the field on the weekends.
Crowds bring with them additional security issues. Mount Vernon has been in discussions with the Sandy Springs Police Department to help patrol the perimeter of its property and the trails, Lundstrom said. The school plans to establish an on-call security system enabling neighbors to directly call the school’s security team with issues.
