Tustin High Area Left in Dust, Disarray by Roadway Project

Getting to Tustin High School isn’t easy these days, with students navigating a deep, dusty trench and vying with 600 other drivers for 200 parking spaces.

The problem is that the state Department of Transportation, in preparation for widening the Santa Ana Freeway to 12 lanes, is moving El Camino Real closer to the school--about 25 feet away at the closest point. The freeway itself will move to within 100 feet of the school.

While Caltrans officials say they expect the widening of the Santa Ana Freeway to make life easier for commuters, so far it has made a mess for those at Tustin High and the Laguna Garden Apartments next door.

“Every day it’s a new and exciting experience to see who’s doing what,” said Brad Lantz, assistant principal at Tustin High.

Last month, Caltrans workers dotted El Camino Real with “road closed” signs, tore up the lawn and 15 to 20 pine, oak and pepper trees in front of the school, and demolished four portable classrooms and a chunk of the parking lot. Now they are moving pipes and power lines and realigning El Camino Real, which must be done before they can widen the Santa Ana Freeway to 12 lanes.

For now, a wide dusty trench fronts the school and the apartments, where a swimming pool and four buildings have been demolished and six more are targeted for the bulldozer. The additional apartments must be demolished so Caltrans can replace the land it took from the school.

Crews have broken water mains a couple of times, turning the dust into gooey mud.

“We had what some of the staff referred to as Lake Lantz out there,” said Lantz, who is in charge of maintenance at Tustin High School.

And parking at the school, which was not ideal to begin with, has gotten worse since 75 parking spaces disappeared. Between 650 and 700 young drivers compete for 237 spots each morning.

“My daughter, who’s a senior here, gets up a lot earlier to make sure she gets a parking place now,” said Margie Cary, a teacher with the district.

Supt. Maurice Ross said it is “too bad it happened in the spring because we have so many more kids with driver’s licenses in the spring. Every 16-year-old in town wants to drive his dad’s car to school in the spring.”

Lantz said the school plans to refurbish the existing parking lot this summer, acquire the apartments next door by mid-November and then expand the lot.

But Roger Williams, chief of right-of-way acquisitions for Caltrans, said he does not expect to take possession of the apartments before 1991.

Although Caltrans already has demolished some of the Laguna Garden dwellings, the department has been unsuccessful in negotiating to buy the property and is now in the process of forcing the sale by eminent domain, Williams said.

“I don’t think the owner has a lot of choice about it,” said Kim Newell, agent for owner Louis Wolfsheimer. “Obviously it’s disrupting homes and it’s disrupting lives, but the owner does not have a choice.”

Although Caltrans does provide relocation assistance, depending on length of residence, some of those who must move are unhappy. And some who are staying are unhappy as well.

For 15 years, Charles Sims saw greenery and another apartment building from his front door. Now he sees the ditch and passing cars on the freeway.

“It’s made a mess of things in the house. There is dust and dirt constantly,” Sims said. “And of course everything is open now, so it’s constant freeway noise. I don’t for the life of me know why they don’t go ahead and put up the block wall they’re planning.”

Some Tustin High parents say the inconvenience for students and teachers is a result of poor planning.

They and some board members had suggested closing Tustin High School and building a new school on a site in Tustin Ranch that was set aside for a high school, according to a 1985 agreement between the Tustin Unified School District and the Irvine Co.

“Most of us in South Tustin feel like the decision to move the school should really have been made yesterday,” said Iris Mercuro, who has a son attending the school and three more to follow him. “We’ve known for three years that Caltrans was going to move the freeway that close. The pollution and the noise from the freeway is horrendous, and I don’t think it’s a good environment for learning.”

A committee studied the issue and reported to the board late last year, but Supt. Ross said last week that closing Tustin High was never legally, politically or financially possible.

“Tustin High School is not in that bad of shape,” Ross said. “It’s kind of a mess now, but it’s an excellent facility. It really was never a serious consideration to abandon it.”