The St. Joseph School District’s plan for opening and closing schools has hit an unexpected roadblock.

St. Joseph’s Planning Commission threw up the block with a unanimous vote against the district’s request for a conditional use permit for a new elementary school on Karnes Road between Woodbine and Leonard roads.

Narrow roads that lack sidewalks, curbs and gutters in the area make for a risky school location, commissioners said. The $6 million to $8 million in city funding needed to improve roads near the site isn’t taxpayer friendly, they said. And city funding for those roads is not in sight.

City staff leaders back the school location. They’re recommending that the City Council grant the permit. City staff say there are ways to ensure student safety without improving the roads.

The council will have the final say on the issue.

The Planning Commission recommendation took school officials by surprise and has put the district’s $43 million school construction and consolidation proposal, including $18.3 million for the Karnes Road school, in jeopardy. Student growth in northeast St. Joseph — where the Karnes site sits — drove the reorganization plan.

“We’re reeling from Thursday,” Rick Hartigan, the district’s chief operating officer, said of the April 24 commission meeting.

Since the application for the conditional use permit didn’t indicate the district needed to address road issues aside from road improvements in front of the school, the commission’s concerns caught district officials off guard.

“Apparently, we’re being held to a standard that we were not aware of,” Mr. Hartigan said. “There is not anything we can do that can fix the city’s road problem.”

Mr. Hartigan said that road conditions in most of northeast St. Joseph and near many existing schools throughout the city are similar. So he doesn’t know what site the commission would approve, he said. Now, he said he doubts that the commission would approve of a school at Carden Park — the district’s proposed site for a school that would serve Neely and Hall elementary school students. Those roads are similar to roads near the northeast site, he said.

The commission has yet to look at the Carden Park site.

Planning Commission member Chris Dunn said that although the school district wasn’t required to address the roads, he thinks the district has a responsibility to address how the school would fit into the community.

The school district and city need to join in presenting the total taxpayer impact, he said, instead of making the school cost and road cost separate issues.

Really, he said, the problem with the school site stems from past city mistakes, adding that the community needs to quit making the same mistakes. The city should have assessed traffic impact fees on the developers who brought new homes into the neighborhood. The fees could have funded those road improvements.

“What we have now is we’re trying to live with some of the mistakes of the past,” said Mr. Dunn, Leavenworth County planning and zoning director. “If we allow this school to come in, it would just be exacerbating an already bad problem.”

City planning and community development director Clint Thompson, who will detail the city’s support for the school site to the council, has a different view.

“We don’t think we should limit growth or development in that area up until we have 100 percent of the road funding,” Mr. Thompson said.

Since the city does now have a traffic impact fee program, he’s confident the road funding will come; he just can’t predict when.

Before the council hears the school proposal May 19, there likely will be a council committee meeting, where council members and school and city staff can discuss the issue, including details that weren’t presented during the commission meeting.

The council is expected to vote on the issue June 2. If the council approves the permit, the school board plans to let the district buy 10 acres, including a home, from Robert Warden for $395,000. Reed Kline and Howard Miller have agreed to donate five acres behind Mr. Warden’s property to the district.

If in April 2009 voters approve both a renewal of the district’s 63-cent operating budget property tax and a new tax for the $43 million construction project, the district would build the school within a couple of years. If both proposals pass, taxpayers will see an about 4.5 percent district property tax increase.

If the district buys the property and one or both of the tax proposals fail, the district would keep the property until it identifies funding for the school.

Nancy Hull can be reached at nancyhull@npgco.com.