TEMPLE-BEAUDRY : Site for High School Meets Opposition

A plan under consideration by the Los Angeles Board of Education to purchase land in a Temple-Beaudry neighborhood for a new high school has met with resistance from some residents.

A recent community meeting at Betty Plasencia Elementary School organized by school board member Vickie Castro drew nearly 100 people concerned about the board’s interest in a vacant 24-acre lot bounded by 1st, Toluca and Colton streets and Beaudry Avenue.

The board is looking for a site after its bid to buy the Ambassador Hotel in Wilshire Center fell victim to economics and legal wrangling.

Few question the need for a new high school in Central Los Angeles; nearly 5,000 district students are bused daily to San Fernando Valley schools because inner-city campuses are overcrowded.

But many Temple-Beaudry residents are worried that putting a new high school just blocks from Belmont High will spell trouble. Some point to the area’s gang problems and said they fear that another school will exacerbate rivalries and generate new tensions.

“We’re not saying that a school is a bad idea,” said Xavier Flores, “but why does it have to be in this area?” Flores helped collect 300 signatures from his Temple-Beaudry neighbors on a petition calling for affordable housing rather than a school at the site. “We’re going to fight the school all the way to the end,” Flores said.

Some residents fear that construction of a school would mean the loss of replacement and additional affordable housing, the later of which was promised as part of the Central City West development plan. The project has so far led to the demolition of at least 300 homes in the neighborhood.

A subsidiary of the Shimizu Corp., a Japanese development company, is offering to sell the lot to the district, which has set aside $30 million for a possible purchase.

Castro, who represents the area on the board, wants to see more housing as well as a new school in the community. “I am committed to replacement housing for the homes that were demolished because of the Central City West plan, but I cannot accept the building of housing without a school,” she said. “What will we do to the children that move into the new housing? Give them a bus pass?”

The school board has not given up hope of landing the Ambassador Hotel site at an affordable price or purchasing another site in the Mid-Wilshire area, Castro said.

Neighborhood activists are expected to voice their opposition again when the board considers the matter during its meeting Monday.