Dressed as Disney characters and carrying balloons, residents of a Loch Raven neighborhood protested outside the Baltimore Lutheran School on Tuesday morning, saying the school needs to take down the “hideous circus tent” it uses as a field house.
Protesters said that the tent is an eyesore and that the school does not provide adequate parking, restrooms and security when it rents the fields beneath it to outside groups ? upsetting neighbors when athletes block their driveways and use their yards as bathrooms.
“What they put up was three times bigger than they said it would be, and the constant, around-the-clock activity day in and day out at the school is a concern,” said resident Ross Memphis. “And they fail to put people there to monitor what their activities are doing to us.”
The protests and a pending lawsuit are the latest moves in the war the Chatterleigh Community Association is waging against the tent and the school?s growth, which also includes a sarcastic Web site loaded with photos and comments about the tent and school headmaster Randy Gast.
Gast acknowledged attempts to compromise with the neighbors have so far proved unsuccessful. He said the school?s expansion ? which is slated to include a 800-seat worship and fine arts center ? is necessary to accommodate a surge in enrollment. In the last four years, enrollment has grown from 295 to at least 500, Gast said.
The field house, as he called it, will eventually hold two indoor soccer fields, or six volleyball courts, or three basketball courts or three tennis courts. He said the community?s requests, including approval of all rental customers, borders on unreasonable.
“In a true negotiation situation, there has to be give and take and compromise,” Gast said. “There has to be willingness to work together and, at this point, there is some concern on our part that hasn?t been the case.”
The county approved the tent, which the school bought from now-defunct Baltimore nightclub Bohager?s, as a minor commercial structure, which allowed the school to bypass several community input stages.
Council Member Bryan McIntire, R-District 3, said the tent is several inches taller than normally allowed.
McIntire said he is trying to establish a panel to review the aesthetic details of development proposals, with the hope of avoiding similar clashes in the future.
The community scheduled another protest today, the school?s first full day of classes.
