Skaggs Catholic Center's farm-to-table garden is in the ground, after a code change Draper narrowed

DRAPER — Students, teachers and volunteers built planter boxes, prepared soil and laid out garden plots at the Skaggs Catholic Center on Saturday, Oct. 10, the first visible work on a farm-to-table project the campus had been assembling for more than a year, FOX 13 Utah reported 1. Organizers hope the garden will eventually supply the school cafeteria and serve as an outdoor classroom where students study soil and analyze nutrients 1.

Getting the land into production took a separate approval from Draper City. In a public hearing notice posted May 28, the city said it would hear site plan and conditional use requests for property at approximately 235 E. Kimballs Lane, described in the notice as "a garden/farm that is ancillary to the schools that are part of the Skaggs Catholic Center," with the Planning Commission to take the matter up June 11 at 6:30 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall 2. Draper has since removed that notice page from its website; the copy the Ledger read is an Internet Archive capture made June 13, 2026 2. The commission's action on the two requests at that hearing is not recorded in the material the Ledger reached 2.

The code question came first. Draper's municipal code did not list private schools as either a permitted or a conditional use in residential zones, and Community Development Director Jennifer Jastremsky told the Planning Commission that every private school already standing in those zones is a legal nonconforming use, according to the minutes of the commission's March 12 meeting 3.

The request reached the commission as application 2026-0006-TA: a text amendment sought by Joe Colosimo, representing Skaggs Catholic Center, LLC, to allow private schools as a conditional use in all residential zones 3. Staff brought the commission a narrower version instead: a conditional use in the R3 zone only, as a small-scale auxiliary use for existing private schools, which Jastremsky said would let an existing school expand without opening the residential zones to new large schools 3.

Two commissioners pressed on that. Commissioner Nixon said she was concerned about the practice of writing a text amendment for one specific property, and Chair Adams agreed; Jastremsky answered that limiting the size and requiring the use to be auxiliary to an existing school would keep the change narrow 3. Adams asked that the word "ancillary" be clearly defined, and Nixon noted that the staff report's original text would have allowed new private schools in all residential zones and said she favored the recommended limits 3. Jastremsky told the commission that private schools are permitted as conditional uses in commercial zones 3.

Colosimo told the commissioners the property was bought four years ago and the structure on it demolished, and that the campus now wants to build a greenhouse there to provide farm-to-table education for its students 3. He said the lot sits north of 11800 South, adjacent to the school's west entrance; that the campus also plans to grow trees for the existing school grounds; and that it will start with a 20-by-20-foot greenhouse, with crops and berries planted on the property 3. He said the group likes the R3 zone as a fit for the area and did not believe a request to rezone the property commercial would be approved 3.

Students from the middle school's "Food and You" class urged the commission to approve the request, according to the minutes 3. One student described a three-phase project, said the class had secured a $7,500 grant through the Captain Planet Foundation and had already started seeds including peppers and lettuce, and said the first phase this summer would be a small vegetable garden with a cover crop to improve the soil; another said the long-term goal is producing food for the cafeteria 3. The Ledger is not naming the students, who are minors.

The commission voted 5-to-0 to forward a positive recommendation to the City Council, with five recommended modifications attached: the conditional use would be allowed in the R3 zone only; limited to properties of an acre or less that are ancillary to an existing private school campus inside the city; site coverage with buildings and structures capped at 2,000 square feet; building height capped at 25 feet; and the term "ancillary" to be defined in the municipal code 3.

The garden effort is led by Sydney Johnson, a seventh-grade science teacher at St. John the Baptist Middle School, FOX 13 reported 1. The Skaggs Catholic Center describes itself as a private Catholic campus serving students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, and lists its address as 300 East 11800 South in Draper, the center states 4.

The campus is not new to gardening. FOX 13 reported that Monica Bathurst and Sister Celine Dounies have tended a garden at St. John the Baptist Elementary School for 15 years, where students have grown and eaten their own food, and Bathurst described the elementary garden as a community effort 1. The elementary school tells families that its Fall Fest sells fresh vegetables and herbs from Sister Celine's garden 5.

Volunteer Chris Lentz told FOX 13 he hopes students come away with a greater appreciation for hard work and for becoming more self-sufficient 1. The station also reported that the project reaches back to Draper's agricultural past, before the city's growth, and that volunteers were preparing beds with a spring harvest in view 1.