SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : School Parking Lot Temporarily Barred

Members of the Village San Juan Homeowners’ Assn. have won a temporary court order to stop construction of a parking lot for Capistrano Valley High School north of their homes.

The injunction, issued in Orange County Superior Court last week, prevents the Capistrano Unified School District from doing any work on the hillside lot until Sept. 6 when a hearing is scheduled to determine if the injunction should be extended.

The 350-space lot would provide more parking for the high school after about 80 spaces are displaced in the construction of a new gym, said district Assistant Supt. Bill Dawson.

School district officials are confident that the judge will ultimately rule in their favor and allow the tiered parking lot to be completed.

“The school district is in a positive position,” said Jacqueline Cerra, a district spokeswoman. “We’re trying to alleviate a community concern that has existed for quite some time--student parking on area streets.”

According to Cerra, students have been parking in Village San Juan and then trudging up the dirt hill to the high school for the past several years. With the new lot, district officials hope that students will no longer park in the nearby housing tract. And students who walk to school from the Village will travel a paved access instead of a dirt hill.

“By having a parking lot there, it will be a much safer situation,” Cerra said.

Residents claim that they were never notified of plans to build the parking lot.

“We got it jammed down our throats without knowing what was going on at all,” said Dean Steinkey, president of the homeowners association.

District officials have met with the homeowners, offering to replant trees torn out during grading and to install fences to shield the parking lot from the neighboring houses.

In the request for an injunction, filed in Orange County Superior Court, the residents allege that because they were improperly notified of the project, they were excluded from public hearings on the project’s environmental impact.

Two attempts to fully notify residents of the project were unsuccessful, district officials acknowledge. First, Capistrano Valley High School Principal Thomas Anthony was asked to notify the homeowners association but instead told a PTA member who lived in the neighborhood. And a newspaper announcement about the project also never reached the residents because it was placed in a publication not delivered in San Juan Capistrano.

But the school district contends that a sign placed at the high school was sufficient notice under state guidelines.

Residents are concerned that construction of the lot will result in vandalism and parking problems in their neighborhood. They also want the lot to be relocated on a flat parcel of land below the slope.

“It’s a dangerous situation. The hill is too steep, and it’s going to be a skateboard haven,” Steinkey said.

A Sept. 6 court hearing will consider the matter.