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Board of Adjustment

Orange County · Board of Adjustment
Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Regular meeting Farmland and open spaceLand conversion and large developmentSchools and educationStormwater and floodingSubdivision and site plans

Agenda document Watch Meeting recap

What's on this agenda

Orange County's board of adjustment holds an evidentiary hearing on December 10 on a major modification to the Emerson Waldorf School's special use permit, updating the campus master plan approved in 2015.

The school, a Pre-K through grade 12 private school on 54 acres at 6211 New Jericho Road, wants a road map for buildings phased over ten years, supporting growth from about 294 students and 48 staff to roughly 350 students and 55 staff by 2035. It would build less than it is already permitted to: total new square footage drops from 56,562 to 37,684, with the 13,942-square-foot gymnasium, an eighth-grade classroom building and a shop addition all dropped. No new land is involved.

Summarized from the published agenda. Read the agenda itself before acting on it.

Meeting recap

What happened, drawn from the records published after the meeting.

No minutes have been published for this meeting, so the board's decision is not on the record.

The application went through the county's normal steps beforehand. The development advisory committee reviewed it on September 4 and had no objection provided the items in its memo are addressed, and the school held a neighborhood information meeting on its own campus on October 22. Under the development ordinance the planning director can approve minor modifications to a special use permit, but anything else is a major modification that must come to this board.

The main campus, about 24.76 acres of the 54, holds a nursery, middle school, high school, woodland school, blacksmith shop, maintenance shop and offices, plus an amphitheater and courts. There is also a farm on site that will seek bona fide farm status. The school holds a separate special use permit for daycare dating to 1988, modified in 1993 and 2006.

Speaking at this meeting

Orange County's own rules for public comment — check them before you rely on anything here.

Agenda items (2)

Minutes approval · 1Public hearing · 1
  1. 3 Approval of Minutes — November 12, 2025
    Minutes approval
  2. 6 SUP25-009 Emerson Waldorf School — Major SUP Modification
    Public hearing Farmland and open spaceLand conversion and large developmentSchools and educationStormwater and floodingSubdivision and site plans
    An evidentiary hearing on a major modification to the school's 2015 special use permit and site plan, updating the campus master plan for buildings phased over ten years. Student population would rise from about 294 to roughly 350 by 2035 with staff from 48 to 55, while total approved new square footage falls from 56,562 to 37,684 — the gymnasium, an eighth-grade classroom building and a shop addition are dropped. The site is zoned Rural Buffer and is not in a water supply watershed.
    • 6211 New Jericho Rd · no matching parcel on file
    • Pin 9871646437 · Waldorf Educational Assoc of NC INC · assessed $4,133,900
    • Pin 9871658140 · Waldorf Education Association of North Carolina INC · assessed $272,200
    • Pin 9871743098 · Waldorf Educational Association of North Carolina INC · assessed $734,400
    • Pin 9871721935 · Waldorf Educational Assn of NC INC · assessed $1,129,300

Agenda changes

What moved between published versions of this agenda. Item numbers shift constantly as things are inserted, so only genuine additions and removals are listed.

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