Columbia schools to grow with city

As cities go, Columbia isn’t that big yet. It is big enough, though, for the character of housing and subdivisions to change drastically as you follow the compass points on a tour of the outer Columbian urban fringe.

That’s what a Columbia School Board meeting-on-wheels did Thursday: check out how Columbia’s growth could have an impact on the Columbia Public School District in the next 10 years.

Schools Superintendent Phyllis Chase thought it would help the school board, district administration staff and school principals to understand where their students live now and where they will come from in the future. Chase said the bus tour was part of the Community Engagement Task Force’s work to make sure the public has input as the district keeps pace with Columbia’s growth.

Tour guide Tim Teddy, director of planning and development for the city, started his rolling commentary on North Garth Avenue, heading for subdivisions on the north side such as Vanderveen Crossing, Brookside Square and Forest Ridge.

“This is a major sector of Columbia’s growth,” Teddy said. The subdivisions are so spread apart, he said, “the plan is to knit them together with road planning.”

Brown School Road is little more than a bucolic country lane, but plans call for it to eventually be widened to four lanes. Another four-lane street, this one divided with a median, is proposed to connect the Forest Ridge subdivision with the planned Providence Road extension.

“Preliminary plans have been approved for about 1,000 dwelling units north and south of Waco Road, in the northeast sector of Columbia’s metropolitan area,” Teddy said.

Homes on the north side are more affordable than those proposed on either the southeast or southwest areas. On the north side, subdivision grading is stark. Not many trees are left. Under Columbia’s tree preservation ordinance, only 25 percent of climax species trees, like oaks, beeches and hickory are protected.

As the bus rolled south on U.S. 63 and then east toward the Vineyards and Old Hawthorne subdivisions, the sheer numbers of trees still standing forms a stark contrast with the northern subdivisions. Some of the golf course greens are lush already, although none of the new homes are complete. The original “farmhouse,” a two-story brick mansion with columns, remains.

Two hundred and sixty units are planned for the Bellwood Tract, in the Paxton Keeley Elementary and the Smithton Middle schools south and west of Columbia, Teddy told the group.

”These are not affordable houses,” he said.

Mary Sue Gibson, principal of Mill Creek Elementary School, pronounced the tour helpful.

“There’s enormous growth in Columbia,” she said. “It’s important to see it firsthand.”