Sherman Oaks Institution Asks More Time : School Neighbors Press Car Issue

Faced with about 40 impatient Sherman Oaks neighbors, Buckley School officials Monday asked more time to resolve problems with student drivers who, homeowners say, have turned the neighborhood into “a parking lot.”

But residents on nearby Stansbury Avenue and Valley Vista Boulevard who attended a public hearing held by the Los Angeles Planning Department complained that they had been put off by the school for four years.

Shirley Hart, a homeowners spokeswoman, said residents were told four years ago that the parking problems were the top priority. “And here it is, four years later,” she said, “and we have nothing, except the situation has gotten worse.”

Headmaster Walter H. Baumhoff said the school had recently created 30 parking spaces on the campus, partly by putting angle parking where there once was parallel parking. But he said other solutions will take longer to effect.

Baumhoff said the school is considering adding more parking by constructing on-campus parking or providing a remote parking lot from which students could be bused to and from school.

“We have not been insensitive,” Baumhoff said after the hearing. “We have tried to come up with a variety of solutions, but they don’t seem to be the right solutions.”

The school also has hired traffic consultants and set up student and faculty committees on parking and neighborhood relations, he said.

Hart said a renewed effort to resolve the parking problems was made when homeowners began researching the land-use permit for the school. She contended that the school had violated land-use restrictions by exceeding the number of students allowed on the campus and by not providing enough off-street parking for its faculty and staff.

Baumhoff said the enrollment was within the legal limit, and that the faculty and staff were provided with on-campus parking spots.

Homeowners suggested that the school build more on-site parking or restrict the number of students allowed to drive to school.

“Our street is being used as a parking lot, meeting place and drag strip,” said Hudson Hickman, who on lives on Stansbury Avenue. “Gradually, it is being taken away from us.”