Educators Disappointed That City’s Master Plan Doesn’t Include Schools

Less than a month after city and school officials celebrated what they called a historic partnership to work toward solving school crowding problems, school board members say they are disappointed that the City Council has decided against including schools in its master plan for future growth.

The council voted 5 to 2 last week against amending the city’s Comprehensive Plan--Ventura’s blueprint for development through the year 2010--to give the city authority to deny housing permits to developers if the affected schools are too crowded.

Council members argued that the school district’s own long-range plans for building more schools are sufficient. They also said that adding language regarding schools to the Comprehensive Plan might confuse voters who will be asked in June to approve an $81-million bond measure to pay for building new schools and renovating existing campuses.

School trustees said this week that they were concerned that the school district will be left out of the decision making process when the city reviews housing permits and that housing tracts could be approved without considering whether schools had room for new students.

Trustees said the concept of reviewing school capacity when considering new housing projects had been discussed by city and school officials as a safeguard to prevent further crowding.

The suggested amendment, they said, would provide assurance that the city would factor in school needs long after the current council and school trustees complete their terms.

“The intent was that it would allow the city to use the school population as a reason not to issue building permits,” trustee John Walker said after Tuesday’s board meeting. He said the school board must now be more vigilant in monitoring future residential development.

Councilman Steve Bennett, who along with Councilman Gary Tuttle supported the proposed amendment, said the addition would give the council legal authority to consider how crowded the city’s schools are when deciding whether to allow new homes to be built.

“If, in fact, we have this great partnership with the school, why not cement the partnership with the schools?” Bennett, who wrote the proposed amendment, asked his council colleagues during last week’s meeting.

But the council majority sided with city staff, which strongly urged them to vote against the proposal to give existing plans to deal with school crowding time to work.

“The key here is to allow [the] plan to run its course,” said Assistant City Manager Steve Chase. “Give it the opportunity to run its course before it’s amended or threatened by external issues.”

In addition, council staff also said the proposed amendment to the city’s Comprehensive Plan might hurt the school district’s chance of success with its first bond measure in 28 years.

Councilman Jim Friedman said voters might be less inclined to approve the bonds if they think the council will take care of school crowding through the Comprehensive Plan. Several council members said they would be willing to revisit the idea of adding schools to the city’s master plan after the June election, when its inclusion could no longer jeopardize the bond measure.

But Tuttle said the real reason the amendment was defeated is because the council majority did not want to further limit its ability to approve future growth.

“They don’t want restrictions on development,” he said. “They think there are too many already.”

School officials, who have been out of the development loop for the past three decades, remain out of the loop, Tuttle said.

“It means the council can add housing without worrying about overcrowding,” he said. “It’s business as usual.”

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Supt. Joseph Spirito hopes the council vote won’t become a divisive issue that could jeopardize the partnership the district has formed with the city.

Spirito, who said he would not take a position on the amendment, is concerned that making the issue too political could hurt the district’s bond campaign.

He tried to assure board members that the district still had the power to request environmental impact reports before any housing project begins, or file a lawsuit to stop construction.

The council vote comes on the heels of press conferences and joint meetings held by city and school officials to praise their unprecedented partnership in working toward solving school crowding problems. For nearly 30 years, nothing had been done to build new schools in Ventura.

But both agencies decided to join forces last year to address the issue. They formed a 19-member committee of business people, educators, parents and developers to study school capacity needs through 2010.

Last month, the committee released a report recommending the district build at least two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school.