BY FRANK DELANO

The Colonial Beach School Board Wednesday night selected the town’s high school as the site for a new middle school.

But zoning regulations, permits and approvals will delay its opening until after the beginning of school in September.

Superintendent Donna M. Power said sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders will be taught at Colonial Beach Elementary School—and bused to the high school for lunch—until modular, middle-school classrooms are permitted at the high school.

Power said she did not know when the proposed, $228,000 middle school might be ready for students.

A two-page memo from Planning Director Gary D. Mitchell outlined the lengthy, expensive permitting process. Power said she had started to look for an architect to prepare a required site plan that might cost as much as $30,000.

Power had proposed a separate middle-school complex at the high school, but Mitchell wrote that the zoning allows only “one principle building on a single parcel of land.” Power said she was studying ways to join the two buildings to avoid subdividing the property.

The high school is also located in a residential area that requires a conditional-use permit, Mitchell said. Permit applications cost $800 to file and take up to 45 days to review before being presented to the Planning Commission and Town Council for public hearings and approval.

Site-plan reviews and revisions could take another 75 days. Approval of building plans could take another month before construction could begin, Mitchell said.

For more on this story, read Friday's Free Lance-Star.