School Neighbors Resist Razing of Homes for Playground

Los Angeles school officials met Tuesday night with residents of a North Hollywood neighborhood to assess the effect of a plan to destroy a row of homes so that a school playground can be expanded. But most of the residents only wanted to know why the plan had been considered in the first place.

The plan, which would force eight homeowners along Gentry Avenue to sell their houses to clear the way for a new playground at Victory Boulevard Elementary School, is intended to ease crowding at the school.

“You’ll be disrupting our neighborhood and imposing a hardship on us just to let a bunch of children run around and play,” complained Charles Cline, one of the residents meeting with two Los Angeles Unified School District officials and a school consultant at the Trinity Community Presbyterian Church. Cline said his backyard would face the new playground.

The meeting was called to get neighbors’ comments for an environmental impact report on the proposal, and to invite the affected residents to offer alternatives.

Suggested Alternatives

The angry homeowners and community leaders eventually suggested several alternatives, including using a nearby city park as a student playground, redrawing the school’s enrollment boundaries and transferring some students to other schools.

But the audience mostly expressed its anger. “You just came into our lives and laid it on the line. How dare you?” said Selma Green, another homeowner.

School officials simply listened, for the most part. Keeton Krietzer, an executive with a Santa Ana consulting firm that is preparing the environment impact statement, promised that the complaints would be included in his report to the school board, which is expected to make a decision early next year. The city Planning Department must also approve the plan. “Everything will be addressed,” Krietzer said.

The issue has its roots in a Feb. 12 vote by the Los Angeles school board to begin proceedings aimed at buying and removing the eight houses, all of them one-story bungalows. Residents said they were angry that they were not informed until June that the district wants their land, and then only through conversations with teachers at the school.

Robert J. Niccun, the district’s chief real estate agent, acknowledged that the district’s intentions have not gone over well with neighbors, saying: “It’s very seldom that people are happy when they hear they must sell their property.”

But, he said, recent surges in enrollment at the school and the installation of temporary classrooms on the playground have made it necessary for the district to acquire the 1.9 acres of land now occupied by homes.

School board member Roberta Weintraub, whose district includes North Hollywood, has supported the school expansion. “It’s a case of balancing the needs of thousands of children against that of a handful of residents,” she said in August.

Jean Todaro, principal of Victory Boulevard Elementary, said that the school has an enrollment of 1,122 this year, although the official capacity is 903 students. Enrollment has been capped, Todaro said, and, beginning Thursday, any student who moves within the school’s enrollment boundaries will be bused to another San Fernando Valley campus.

Higher Appraisal to Be Offered

Niccun said the district has hired two independent appraisers to evaluate each property, and that officials will choose the higher appraisal when they make their offers to the homeowners. Krietzer said the homes are worth about $100,000 each.

If the homeowners refuse to sell, Niccun said, the district could begin eminent domain proceedings to acquire the houses.

“Our first intention is to buy the property through an offer and agreement process,” Niccun said. “But it is inherent in the law that public agencies can take over through eminent domain, although we hope it doesn’t come to that.”