Wilmette has told Loyola Academy to reduce its school enrollment to 2,000 students, or officially ask for relief from the 1993 special zoning requirement that put the enrollment cap in place.
If it doesn’t, “the Village will have no choice but to commence the appropriate code enforcement action,” according to a May 17 letter to the school from John Adler, Wilmette’s community development director. The school has been given until June 17 to respond.
Loyola admitted in a May 10 letter to the village that it has slightly exceeded the cap since 1994.
The focus on the private Jesuit academy’s enrollment numbers stems from an ongoing dispute between the school and some neighbors over whether Loyola should be allowed to build two new parking lots on small fields on Laramie Avenue adjacent to the school. Opponents say it will bring more traffic congestion, lower property values and possibly lead to flooding. Loyola, however, has maintained that the parking lots would serve staff and vendors, and wouldn’t increase the number of students at the school or result in more student parking passes.
In the May 10 letter, Terence Brennan, Loyola’s vice president, chief financial and operations officer, said the school believes that “we have been in substantial compliance with the enrollment conditions set forth in the 1993 Special Use condition.”
However, he said that “since 1994-95, Loyola’s total enrollment at Sept. 30 has averaged 2,045.50 or 2.28 percent over the cap.” He later stated in the letter that “in this same period, Loyola’s total enrollment at May 30 has averaged 2,025.32 or 1.27 percent over the cap.”
Brennan said Loyola’s admission policies are “more of an art than a science,” because tuition-driven private high schools like Loyola often admit more students than they have openings for, only to see actual admissions fall before or during school years, when students fail to attend Loyola.
However, Adler’s four-paragraph May 17 letter to the school says that while “the village understands that managing enrollment of a private high school can be challenging,” information provided by Loyola shows that the school has regularly broken the cap since May 2001.
Adler’s letter refers to the period of consecutive school years in which Loyola’s enrollment both began and ended above 2,000, beginning with the 2001-02 academic year, when enrollment started at 2,057 and ended with 2,043. In that year and every year since, Loyola has seen enrollments consistently above 2,000, according to figures in Brennan’s letter.
Brennan’s letter refers to all enrollment figures since the 1994-95 school year. Between 1994-95 and 2000-01, Loyola’s enrollment was either consistently below 2,000, or ended the year below 2,000 while beginning above 2,000. Only one year in that period – 1998-1999 – was consistently above 2,000, according to the letter.
Adler said Loyola must either come up with a compliance plan or submit a request for a special use amendment by June 17. If the school does neither, Adler said, Wilmette will start enforcement action, although the letter doesn’t state what that would entail.
The June 17 deadline is two days after Loyola is scheduled to appear before the Wilmette Zoning Board of Appeals to request permission to build the two parking lots. Adler said the date was chosen because it was 30 days after Wilmette’s May 17 letter.
Loyola Public Relations Director Robin Hunt said in a May 20 email that “Loyola Academy is currently engaged in ongoing productive conversation with village officials regarding our enrollment cap. At this time, our letter of May 10 to the village is our statement.”
Adler said Monday that he didn’t know how Loyola would respond, but he hoped for a reply from the school before the ZBA meeting.
Ariel Weissberg, a representative of North Shore Citizens to Preserve Green Space, the Loyola neighbors’ group that brought the cap violations to light in an attempt to block construction of the parking lots, on Monday called Loyola’s response to “a study in evasion, and disingenuous.” He also said the school should not be given the zoning relief it wants for the parking lots because it violated the enrollment cap.
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