Campus rezoning continues

Liberty receives new classification in order for enrollment to continue to grow

Liberty University’s campus received a new zoning classification following the Lynchburg City Council meeting Jan. 12, consolidating the campus under the single IN-2 zoning classification.

Previously, the 752-acre campus of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University fell under six different zoning classifications, each with its own set of guidelines for use. Senior Vice President for Auxiliary Services Lee Beaumont and Senior Vice President for Construction Planning Charles Spence are two members of the team who worked to create and receive the new IN-2 zoning classification.

notice — Signs were put up around campus to notify students of the proposed rezoning project. Photo credit: RJ Goodwin

Notice — Signs were put up around campus to notify students of the proposed rezoning project. Photo credit: RJ Goodwin

“It consolidated it all, so … there is only one set of rules that we need to think about,” Spence said. “That makes things easier than six different sets of rules. It eliminated the need for a conditional use permit (CUP) . . . as long as functions that are happening are in the interior of the campus. It allowed us a lot more freedom to develop those ideas and to build buildings without CUPs.”

Beaumont said the rezoning has been in the works for the past eight years as Liberty was already self-regulating and maintaining many operations including roadways, sidewalks and parking.

“CUPs were a lot of oversight that we felt was unnecessary, and (the city council) eventually came around to the same conclusion, that we can manage our own affairs internally,” Beaumont said. “It really took until the students started voting in 2008 that then they realized that we have a voice. … Like any democracy, if you don’t vote then you don’t have a voice, and if you do vote then you do have a voice and they will listen to you.”

The new IN-2 zoning permit was created by Lynchburg City Council in conjunction with Liberty in 2013 and is designed “for institutional uses such as schools, colleges, universities, senior living facilities, medical facilities and churches with multiple buildings contained in a campus setting,” according to lynchburgva.gov. The new classification allows for the renovation and expansion of facilities within the institutional district.

“There was extensive research done in college cities across the country and seeing how they zone big schools like Ohio State in Columbus, Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and UVA in Charlottesville,” Beaumont said. “So (IN-2) is a combination of the old zoning rights as well as how those schools do it. It’s been eight or nine years of writing this from concept to conclusion. It was a great collaborative process between Liberty and the city staff. Everyone worked together to get this done.”

During the council meeting, Lynchburg Mayor Michael Gillette described granting the new zoning designation as a “slam dunk.”

“This is exactly what the institutional zoning district was designed for,” Gillette said. “It wasn’t even just designed for some hypothetical application. It was designed in partnership with the large organizations in the city and tailored, really, to meet our mutual needs.”

Under the old zoning designations, Liberty was limited to 15,000 residential students. Currently there are more than 14,500 students enrolled. However, the new zoning classification eliminates the enrollment cap, allowing for the university’s continued growth.

“Our current CUP was going to cap out, and we were going to have to go through a whole new process of a new CUP,” Beaumont said. “The new CUP would have had a whole list of requirements. … It would have had roads. It would have had utilities. The last one had tunnels. (We had to) provide a study for sidewalks, parking, (and) for traffic, and we would have had to pay for all of these engineering reports, but now we don’t have to do any of that. We pretty much maintain our master plan, and we let them know what our master plan is when it affects things outside of this campus.”

While the new zoning designation will allow for the school’s continued growth and make new building projects easier, it is unlikely students will notice anything different.

“Our job is to make sure you don’t see anything,” Beaumont said. “You’re just going to see the finished product and everything behind the scenes is invisible. Like the busing, you don’t care what it takes to run 30,000 hours of busing. You just want the bus to be there. You want it to be on time, you want it to be clean, and you want it to be safe. That’s our job — to make it look easy.”

Lapp is a news reporter.

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