HUNTINGTON BEACH : Housing Is OKd on Old School Site

After hearing emotional pro-and-con testimony from 28 residents, the City Council on Monday night voted 5 to 2 to allow the vacant Bushard Elementary School to be converted into a tract of single-family homes.

“The (Fountain Valley Elementary) School District is celebrating,” said Marc Ecker, assistant to the superintendent, on Tuesday. “We estimate that this will bring the district $8.5 to $9 million, and this is something wonderful for the students.”

He said the money will help the cash-strapped school district repair existing schools, buy new equipment such as school computers, and start something like an endowment fund.

Ecker said the old Bushard School, which has been vacant since 1982, will be torn down by July, and the new houses will be under construction by early next year.

In Huntington Beach, the Bushard School site issue was so heated that the Planning Commission could not reach agreement on it, twice ending in tie votes. Those deadlocks sent the matter to the council. Twenty people spoke against the project Monday night, and eight spoke in favor.

Opponents of converting the site to a housing tract told the council that more homes would cause traffic, safety and water-drainage problems. But supporters of the move said the old school was a dangerous, deteriorating eyesore and that the development would bring money to the school system.

As approved by the City Council, 58 single-family homes will be built on the 10-acre Bushard site. Some of those houses must be “affordable,” or priced for lower-income families, the council said. Officials also demanded that streets and sidewalks be constructed to the same standards as existing ones in the area.

Councilman Peter M. Green and Councilwoman Grace Winchell voted against the project. Green said he favored a more restrictive zoning, and Winchell said she had concerns about housing already being too dense in the Bushard School area.