Yorba Linda / Placentia : Brea Olinda Land Transfer Rescinded

The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District Board of Education voted this week to rescind a resolution transferring an 875-acre property from the Brea Olinda Unified School District to the Placentia-Yorba Linda district.

The action by the board Tuesday creates the possibility that many Yorba Linda students will be bused to schools in another city, a situation the district fought hard to correct in another area only a few years ago.

The undeveloped property, owned by Shell Oil, is unincorporated, but is expected to be annexed by the city of Yorba Linda within the next 12 months. When fully developed in 10 to 20 years, the project is expected to contain 2,338 single-family houses, townhouses, apartments and condominiums, generating an estimated 1,000 to 1,300 students.

The parcel is north of the city and is bounded by Prospect Street on the west, Ohio Street on the east, Wabash Avenue on the south and Carbon Canyon Regional Park and Chino Hills State Park on the north.

Though officials from both school districts and from the city of Yorba Linda all agree that those students should go to Placentia-Yorba Linda schools, Dist. Supt. James O. Fleming said Placentia-Yorba Linda could not accept the property without “full mitigation” of the costs of the additional students.

“The door is still open a little bit,” Fleming said in an interview Thursday. “But unless Shell can come up with total mitigation, we’re not going to go for it.”

The district is looking for Shell to agree to pay for the cost of constructing and equipping a new elementary school, plus expansion of existing middle schools and high schools to accommodate the additional students.

Though the property will probably be sold to developers with whom the district could also negotiate for these funds, Fleming said the district wants the agreement in place before Yorba Linda approves the general plan for the property.

“If we don’t have an agreement with Shell, and the developers don’t agree to full mitigation, the funds to (build and expand schools) would come out of our general fund,” Fleming said. “We have to get full mitigation from Shell or we’d be gambling with money in the general fund, which could have a detrimental impact on the students already in the district.”

If Shell and the district don’t come to an agreement before Yorba Linda certifies an environmental impact report for the proposed development of the property, any students in the area will be assigned to Brea-Olinda schools.

“From a developmental standpoint, it could have a negative impact,” said City Manager Arthur Simonian. “When people buy homes, and they see the kids are going to be bused to another city, there’s a negative connotation associated with that.”

Simonian pointed out that several years ago, the district completed a years-long effort to get a pocket of Yorba Linda transferred from the Fullerton Union High School District to the Placentia-Yorba Linda district.

“All (the district) is doing is creating another pocket of Yorba Linda residents being bused to another community,” Simonian said. “The district worked for years to solve a similar problem.”