Of course, a business can train its own employees. But if that business teaches its methods to others, is it a school? And if it allows them to live on the premises while they are training, is it a boarding school?
That’s what some people are wondering about Congressional Country Club. The club recently applied for permission to build a house near its maintenance yard — at the corner of River Road and Bradley Boulevard — for students who are studying greenskeeping as part of a larger golf course management program at the school.
“What they’re talking about sounds like it could be a boarding school,” said George Barnes, president of the West Montgomery County Citizen’s Association.
Barnes thinks there may be an issue of whether or not the club’s Special Exception allows for such an operation. “They’re not a school. They don’t have a special exception to be a school,” Barnes said.
Norman Knopf attorney for a neighbor who opposes the proposal is concerned “that a Special Exception may be used for a use that’s not allowed.”
Additionally, there is the issue of screening. The club has a line of trees around the corner of the property, but there are several gaps which allow views of piles of earth and maintenance buildings. “There is already an aesthetic problem,” Knopf said.
Congressional’s attorney, Jody Klein, contends that the training program is allowed and has been approved by the Board of Appeals previously. “I know the Board of Appeals [which decides on Special Exceptions] has looked at this issue before,” Klein said.
According to Klein, the club has had such a program for at least five years. “We already have a house on the grounds that has students in it. The goal was to build a new house for them over by the maintenance house,” he said.
The students would then be closer to the area in which they do much of their work. “It puts it in a place where they are closer to their place of work,” Klein said.
The Board had already granted approval to the proposal administratively (this is typically done for non-controversial items and does not usually involve a public hearing), but that it was put on hold, pending a hearing.