Closed Schools’ Sites Becoming Battlegrounds

With ever-decreasing supplies of land and money to go around, city and school district officials here may be on a collision course.

School districts have more land than they need, as campuses have closed because of declining enrollment. And with schools caught in the fiscal vise of the stubborn recession, districts are looking to turn those properties into badly needed cash to educate students at remaining schools.

City leaders, on the other hand, are loathe to see the schools leveled and replaced with homes and shopping centers. Parkland is precious, and residents have grown to depend on the green expanses of playing fields at neighborhood schools, which also provide meeting rooms for youth clubs and adult education.

And because the school district must get city approval to develop the property, the dilemma is rife with conflict.

“This issue has become a hot potato,” said Herb Fauland, an assistant planner for Huntington Beach. “We’re trying to walk a tightrope between the needs of the city for open space versus the needs of the school districts for funding to maintain their level of service at schools.”

Three school sites in Huntington Beach have been demolished during the past decade, replaced by two housing developments and a high-rise office tower.

Among the city’s remaining 47 school sites, 20 are either closed now or will be closed by June. Those 20 sites make up 238 of the 725 acres owned by school districts in the city, consisting of school buildings, open fields, basketball courts and other amenities.

Proponents of preserving the remaining schools emphasize that once a few acres of parkland are lost, chances are they will never be replaced.

But Sheila Marcus, an Ocean View School District trustee, does not buy that argument. “The way I look at is once you lose the resources to educate kids for even one year, you lose something that you can never get back,” she said. “I have to think that’s a bigger loss than the green stuff out there. A kid is only in third grade once.”

Huntington Beach is not alone in grappling with the issue.

The Fountain Valley School District is weighing a joint-venture development to build 140 townhomes on a surplus site on Lighthouse Lane in Fountain Valley. Residents in the area have fiercely protested. The district also has preliminary plans to redevelop another school site in the city.

Irvine is considering a proposal to allow Christ College Irvine, a private school, to sell 40% of its land for the construction of 154 homes. The plan, which received qualified approval from the Planning Commission on Thursday, was scaled back from the originally proposed 349 houses and condominiums to satisfy neighbors’ concerns.

A furor was ignited three years ago in the Orange Unified School District when trustees considered demolishing Olive Elementary School to make way for apartments. That proposal eventually was dropped.

Rush Elementary School in Rossmoor near Los Alamitos in recent years has also been considered for development.

In Huntington Beach, the vast majority of the closed school sites are tied up in long-term leases or otherwise are not being considered immediately for development, according to officials from the five school districts with facilities in the city limits.

But two proposals to redevelop former school sites into residential communities have piqued the ire of residents and have prompted city staff members to take a hard look at the issue. City officials fear that other similar proposals may lie ahead, threatening to sap the city’s supply of parkland and community facilities.

The Fountain Valley School District wants to sell Bushard Elementary School, near Yorktown Avenue and Brookhurst Street in Huntington Beach, to build 58 single-family homes.

On the other side of town, the Huntington Beach Union High School District has development plans for Wintersburg High School, which will be relocated next month. The district is proposing that the current site of the continuation high school and adult school, next to Ocean View High School on Golden West Street at Warner Avenue, be leased to make way for up to 296 apartments or condominiums.

In each case, more than 500 nearby residents have rallied in opposition, arguing that the open public land should be preserved and that the projects would increase traffic, noise and smog in the two neighborhoods.

The two proposals, which both have been rejected by the Huntington Beach Planning Commission, will advance to the City Council within six weeks.

In addition to the Bushard and Wintersburg sites, the Ocean View School District has long-term plans for a residential development on the closed Rancho View Elementary School site.

Sensing the growing conflict, city staff members have tentatively scheduled the first of a series of meetings with school officials on April 6 to discuss the future of all the remaining closed school sites.

The City Council, Planning Commission and school officials will air their respective concerns, and will begin devising guidelines on how the remaining properties should be developed, if at all.

School officials generally have reacted skeptically to the city’s effort, worried that the outcome may tie the hands of school districts in their attempt to shore up their fiscal matters.

“I hope this is a bad joke and a nightmare, and that we can get back to more important things like (school) curriculum,” said Marcus, the Ocean View School District trustee. “It’s nice to have open space, but I don’t think it should come at the expense of schools trying to put themselves on sound financial footing.”

Bonnie Castrey, president of the Huntington Beach Union High School District’s Board of Trustees, is less adamant than Marcus, but said she also believes that cities and many residents are failing to recognize the financial crisis in which schools are now embroiled.

The Wintersburg development has become a crucial issue for the Huntington Beach Union district’s long-term financial planning. The district has slashed $20.7 million from its annual budget in the past seven years.

Opponents of the Wintersburg proposal “seem to have glommed onto this piece of open space as almost a rallying call, when in fact our schools already provide many acres of open space,” Castrey said. “We’re willing to look many years into the future to see what makes sense for the entire community, but mainly for the protection of the education of our young people.”

But advocates of preserving the school sites as parkland say they also have long-term goals in mind. Because development has consumed many of the city’s remaining open areas, “we have to do something,” said Roy Richardson, vice chairman of the Huntington Beach Planning Commission.

Although the city’s position ultimately will be set by the council, city staff members appear to be staking out a firm position of their own. Fauland, the assistant city planner, acknowledges that the city’s interest in the issue essentially amounts to “reverse condemnation.” Just as the city invokes eminent domain to acquire private property deemed to be for the public good, it now wants to preclude development of old schools for the benefit of the public, Fauland said.

It remains unclear, however, what rights the city has in restricting the development of properties owned by school districts, notes Marc Ecker, assistant to the superintendent of the Fountain Valley School District.

And if the opposing camps dig in their heels on that issue, officials fear that a resolution may only come in the courtroom.

“If the meetings amount to a dictation of standards, what will happen is that school districts will fight that, probably collectively, and the matter will be caught up in tremendous litigation,” Ecker said. “And that’s the last thing that would be in the interest of the city and the school districts.”

School’s Out

Huntington Beach has 47 school sites, 20 of which are now closed. The closed sites total 238 acres--a third of the school acreage in the city. All are elementary school sites, unless otherwise noted. Huntington Beach Union High School District encompasses all of Huntington Beach, plus portions of Westminster and Fountain Valley.

Closed School Sites in Huntington Beach OCEAN VIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT 1. Rancho View School 2. Meadow View School 3. Robinwood School 4. Pleasant View School 5. Glen View School 6. Park View School 7. Lark View School 8. Crest View School (will close in June) 9. Haven View School (will close in June) HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 10. Wintersburg High (closed portion of an otherwise open site) FOUNTAIN VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT 11. Bushard 12. Lamb 13. Arevalos 14. Wardlow WESTMINSTER SCHOOL DISTRICT 15. Gill 16. Clara Cook HUNTINGTON BEACH CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT 17. John R. Peterson/Jack K. Clapp schools (single site) 18. Robert H. Burke 19. Ernest H. Gisler Middle School 20. Lois and Harry LeBard Source: Huntington Beach planning division