Suit Says County Ignored Project’s Effect on Schools

Two Santa Clarita Valley school districts sued Los Angeles County on Monday, saying it ignored information that showed a planned Newhall condominium project would add students to already overcrowded schools.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the William S. Hart Union High School District and the Newhall Elementary School District, asks that the court decide whether the county must consider computer information in approving housing developments that will increase school populations, attorneys for the school districts said.

The county’s development monitoring system, known as DMS, evaluates a proposed project’s impact on schools, roads, sewers and other basic services. It is designed to ensure orderly growth in booming unincorporated county areas, such as the Santa Clarita Valley.

The school districts are asking the court to rescind a 1987 decision by the county Regional Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors that allows construction of the 180-unit project by Homestead Group Associates. Approval was granted despite computer-generated statistics showing that the project would necessitate adding one elementary classroom, a third of a junior high school classroom and half of a senior high classroom.

Under DMS guidelines, county planners normally would reject a project or order the developer to scale it back unless the developer were able to provide ways of mitigating the strain it would put on schools, roads or sewers.

County planning officials have maintained that a state school financing law overrides their authority to force developers to further compensate school districts. The 1986 law allows school districts to charge developers up to $1.50 a square foot for new school buildings.

“We feel that the state has taken over in this area,” said Ray Ristic, a county planning official. “That is the mitigating measure.”

School officials disagree and want developers to pay for school expansion or donate land for new schools.

Clyde Smyth, superintendent of the William S. Hart district, said the case “will be critical to us.” The district’s schools already have more students than buildings and makeshift classroom trailers can accommodate, he said.

Homestead Group Associates, also named as a defendant in the suit, was targeted because its development is the first approved since DMS guidelines were instituted that would increase student populations, school officials said.

“We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Bryan Lewitt, legal affairs coordinator for Homestead. The developer has not decided whether to proceed with construction, he said.