A proposal by Bowman International School in south Palo Alto to construct a new building featuring a gymnasium, an art lab and a circular amphitheater scored a victory Monday night, when city officials approved a parcel merger sought by the private school.

The City Council's unanimous approval means that Bowman can combine the two parcels at 689 and 693 Arastradero Road, just 0.2 miles south of its existing location at 4000 Terman Drive.

The parcel at 693 Arastradero abuts a bike path and, beyond that, the Alta Mesa Cemetery. The rear of 689 Arastradero shares a fence with the parking lot of the Terman Apartments, and a church flanks its northern property line.

The sites currently include three homes.

Joining the two parcels would result in a 54,894-square-foot lot in a zoning district where the maximum allowable lot size of 19,999 square feet.

Even with the expansion, Bowman indicated that it will not exceed its existing enrollment cap of 300 students. While Bowman serves grades K-8, most of the users of the new space will be students between the ages of 3 and 5, according to the school. Older students would walk between the existing campus and the new one -- the length of three football fields -- to use the new spaces, a staff report on the project stated.

William McClure, an attorney for Bowman, argued in a letter that the triangular shape of the parcel at 693 Arastradero effectively prohibits Bowman from building the gym without violating the development standards in the city's zoning code. He noted that the merger pertains to two lots that already exceed the existing zoning code.

"The granting of the exception will permit the construction of the School, which could not otherwise be built and which does not result in a home that is out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood," McClure wrote. "The School, although not a detached dwelling, provides for a strong presence of nature with open space affording valuable opportunities not only for children to play, but to learn."

The new project, he added, will include a "learning circle," a science garden, exploration yards, patios and walkways.

Even though the council generally frowns upon granting zoning exceptions, members agreed that Bowman's proposal for the site is reasonable and warrants support. Mayor Greg Scharff called it "good use of property" and Councilman Tom DuBois said the project would not be detrimental to the public in any way.

Even council members who generally support slow-growth policies supported the project, with both Councilman Eric Filseth and Councilwoman Lydia Kou calling it "reasonable."

Significantly, the project faced no opposition at all from the public during Monday's brief hearing (this is in sharp contrast to the proposed expansion of Castilleja School, which has galvanized significant neighborhood opposition). Kou said that in Bowman's case, neighbors had reached out to her even before she joined the council to tell her that this is a good project.

"I do know there's been thought given to every part of this," Kou said.

The only area the council raised concerns about was whether zoning decisions should treat private schools differently from public school. While planning staff didn't make any distinction between public and private in evaluating the proposal, the council agreed that the topic warrants further discussion.

Penny Ellson, a leading bike advocate who helped spearhead the city's Safe Routes to School program, encouraged the council not to set a precedent of treating private schools as civic "community center" facilities. Private schools, she wrote, "draw most of their students from out of town, and generally do not offer use of their playground and building facilities for public use as our public schools do outside of school hours."

"Further, unlike local public schools, private schools' limited TDM (transportation-demand management) efforts have yielded poor results because of the longer distances their families travel," she wrote.