YORBA LINDA : Traffic Woes Cited in Veto of Kid Town

A proposed child-care center was rejected unanimously this week by the City Council after several residents objected to the increase in noise and traffic that the facility would create.

Harry Boman had applied for and received a conditional-use permit from the city’s Planning Commission last November to build Kid Town U.S.A., a day-care center for up to 144 2- to 5-year-olds, on Mountain View Avenue south of Yorba Linda Boulevard.

The site for the proposed center is next to an existing child-care facility, Yorba Linda Preschool, which has an enrollment of about 60 children.

According to several residents of Reservoir Hills, the neighborhood just south of Yorba Linda Preschool, cars leaving that school already create congestion on Mountain View Avenue as they wait to turn left onto Yorba Linda Boulevard.

“The situation as it is is not manageable,” resident Ilene Facer told the council Tuesday night. “With more cars, it will just get worse.”

Facer said motorists leaving the proposed child-care center would be tempted to take Mountain View Avenue south to Highland Avenue through her neighborhood to avoid waiting at the light.

City traffic engineers proposed several measures to alleviate any increase in traffic, including re-striping Mountain View Avenue to add another lane, installing a traffic sensor in Kid Town U.S.A.’s driveway to trigger the left-turn traffic signal, and extending the green light time on that signal.

But council members Barbara Kiley and Daniel T. Welch said they did not think those measures would alleviate the traffic created by the estimated 100 additional cars each morning and afternoon.

The conditional-use permit was appealed by Fernando Reyes, whose house is to the south of the proposed site. In addition to the increase in traffic, Reyes said the noise from the proposed facility would be significant. As planned, the facility’s playground would face his back yard. A six-foot-high block wall dividing the two lots would not sufficiently reduce the sound of children playing, Reyes said.

Several council members said they questioned the need for a child-care facility at that location, particularly a center that does not provide infant care.

“There is a significant need for baby care in Yorba Linda,” Councilman Henry W. Wedaa said. “I’d be more impressed with this (project) if it (addressed that need) and was in east Yorba Linda.”

Although all of the complaints heard by the council came from residents of the adjacent neighborhood, Wedaa said the location should be more, not less, residential.

“I personally think . . . (child-care facilities) ought to be in residential areas, not located in an already busy commercial area,” Wedaa said.