SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : School Bus Parking Has District in Bind

With too little space in their bus yard, officials at the Capistrano Unified School District are wrestling with a side effect of growing enrollment: Where to park 133 buses.

According to a study conducted by consultants McElligott & Associates, student ridership has increased 50% during the past five years.

More than 11,000 students will ride the bus this year, the study found.

To accommodate those students, the district maintains a lot of buses, but the 5 1/2-acre site where they park off Doheny Park Road is poorly lighted and has inadequate security, the consultants said.

Developed in the 1920s as Serra Elementary School, the site was never intended to house and service buses, Supt. Jerome Thornsley said.

The district hopes to find a new site but moving the facility any time soon won’t be easy, given state regulations and expected local opposition.

First, state law prohibits the district from selling the Capistrano Beach property outright.

A trade must be arranged so that no cash is exchanged.

The district hopes to work out a trade agreement with the Dana Point Redevelopment Agency, perhaps for land near the San Juan Creek bed.

A site at one of the new schools in Aliso Viejo may also be a possibility, Thornsley said, but both those options are tentative.

And even if a trade can be worked out, relocating the bus site to a residential area would likely meet with resistance, Thornsley said.

“No one wants it in their back yard,” the superintendent said.

Moreover, whatever site is selected must already be equipped as a bus or automobile storage yard, said Assistant Supt. Bill Dawson, because the district is low on cash for capital improvements.

As if all that wasn’t enough, the district must also confront a competing claim to its current bus lot.

According to Capistrano Bay Parks and Recreation District Director Dave Lewis, the bus yard was dedicated as parkland about five years ago in the county’s Capistrano Beach Specific Plan.

Although that document will be superseded by the as-yet undrafted Dana Point General Plan, Lewis said having a park in the Doheny Park Business District has long been a goal of the community.

In anticipation of the tennis courts, soccer fields or senior citizens centers that could be built at the site, Lewis said the recreation district already has budgeted to buy the land, estimated at a value of $3 million.

But Bill Dawson, assistant superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District, disagrees that parks and recreation officials have any claim over the land.

“We have clear title over the site,” Dawson said.