NEWBURY PARK : Neighbor Takes Dim View of School Growth

Glancing toward his back yard, Newbury Park resident Arthur Minazzoli spied a curious sight: a bunch of guys milling about, looking suspiciously like engineers.

He wandered out to talk to them and learned they were planning to build a $1.7-million assembly room just 20 feet from his property line, on the campus of Cypress Elementary School.

Minazzoli was furious--especially when he discovered that the building would rise two stories high, blocking his view of the school’s athletic fields and the soft, distant ridgelines.

But he had little recourse.

State law grants school districts the right to build classroom-related facilities without consulting neighbors, city planners or council members.

As Mayor Alex Fiore told Minazzoli, the Conejo Valley Unified School District “can build anything they want, anywhere they want and paint it any color they want.”

School district officials used that right to begin work on Cypress Elementary’s multipurpose room, for use as a cafeteria and auditorium. Parents raised funds for the project through jog-a-thons and other events, and architects spent two years designing the annex, said Assistant Supt. Sarah Hart.

Engineers placed the multipurpose room near Minazzoli’s back yard lot because that site offered easy sewer and utility hookups and could be efficiently supervised, Hart said.

“We couldn’t put a building like that way out back on our athletic field, because the entire school will use it for lunch,” Hart said. “It has to be part of the campus.”

Although the school district did not consult city planners, the building will follow all Thousand Oaks design codes and safety standards, she added.

That explanation did not, however, satisfy Minazzoli or his neighbor, Dean Weissman.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, the two protested angrily, telling city leaders they had received no notification of the school district’s plans.

“We are very concerned (with) this kind of a surprise,” Weissman said.

Hart acknowledged that school officials did not specifically notify residents of the construction plans. But every neighbor received frequent invitations to attend fund-raisers for the Cypress Elementary multipurpose room, she said, and should have been aware of the project.

In any case, the grading is under way. The annex should be completed by next spring--to Minazzoli’s dismay.

“From my back yard, we can see the surrounding hills, the park,” he said. “Now it’s going to be a big block wall.”