A Mount Pleasant council member wants the town to find a way to keep a private school’s playing field from being turned into a 10-home subdivision.

Trident Academy, a school for students with dyslexia, plans to sell the field off Wakendaw Road, ABC News 4 reported Nov. 10. The school has let the town use the fields for years, and the land has been open to the public for decades, the station reported.

The academy asked the town’s Planning Commission on Oct. 21 to approve a sketch plan creating 10 lots on 6.5 acres zoned R-1, according to the meeting agenda. The commission voted to deny it, with one member abstaining, the minutes show. Members raised concerns about tree removal, the length of the proposed road and traffic on Wakendaw Road.

The school leases its campus from a benefactor who bought the property, Trident Academy Board Chair JC Taylor told commissioners, according to the minutes. Taylor said the goal is to sell the field and use the proceeds to buy the school property, and that the school had offered the field to the town so it could stay a sports field, but the town did not take up the offer. The minutes do not list a price.

Interim Head of School Hacker Burr told ABC News 4 that Mayor Will Haynie said a town purchase was not possible at the time. Haynie did not respond to the station’s request for comment.

Councilman Jake Rambo told the station the town now has the resources to explore a purchase. He is also pushing a zoning change that would send properties like this one to Town Council before they could be developed.

“I do think that there is a win-win deal that can be had with Trident Academy in the town that does not see this green space bulldozed and preserves it for our future generations of kids,” Rambo said.

Burr said the land was donated to the academy by the Deighton family. “Really the point of that gift was to make sure that the school’s in place to serve generations to come of students that struggle with dyslexia,” he told ABC News 4.

After the October vote, Live 5 News reported that the academy was working on a new proposal.