A Crusading Effort

Orange Park Acres is a blend of city and unincorporated land that speaks to an earlier Orange County--street signs with equestrian names, homes set on large, one-acre lots with stables out back, orange trees galore and no sidewalks or street lights to speak of.

It’s also an endangered lifestyle that some say is under immediate threat, not from developers envious of the open space but from a 29-year-old church that over the years has gradually added classroom space for day school, preschool, kindergarten clear on up to eighth-grade, with one classroom devoted to each grade.

Now, Salem Lutheran Church & School wants two classes for each grade to accommodate all the parents clamoring to enroll their children on its 5-acre campus. To meet the demand, the church needs a two-story building to hold eight new classrooms and a multipurpose building to act as a gymnasium and enlarged fellowship hall, said Craig Olson, executive director of Salem.

In some neighborhoods, Salem’s plans wouldn’t ruffle many feathers, but here, signs from street corners scream “Stop the Salem School Expansion” while some residents walk petitions throughout the community.

For these residents, adding nearly 200 students over the next six years to the current student body of 555 means that many more cars rolling down the streets.

“If we can keep the ambience that makes it conducive here for us, we can keep attracting people who come here for the horses,” said Laura Thomas, president of the Orange Park Acres Assn. “If we can’t, and people say, ‘That area isn’t good for horses,’ it will go away. That’s what happened in Villa Park.”

Hundreds of neighbors on both sides packed into City Hall last week for a five-hour planning commission hearing on the Salem expansion. In the end, the school’s plan passed with one dissenting vote and one abstention. But an appeal is planned to the City Council.

As with any neighborhood dispute, there is some history of discord.

The area where Salem’s playing fields are was once a community horse arena and park-like setting cultivated by local residents for such events as the Fourth of July fireworks show. Several years ago, school leaders told the equestrians they needed the land back. It was never meant to be a permanent gift to the community, Olson said.

Another arena eventually was established right next to the Salem site, but the circumstances were not forgotten.

“We were going to build a basketball court and that’s what started it all,” Salem’s Olson saidwith a sigh.

To reach a compromise under the current plan, Salem officials agreed to plant 98 trees as a buffer, adding close to $100,000 to the $2-million project, Olson said. They also agreed to cap the future student body at 726. But even they admitted they can feel a sense that they are not trusted.

“It’s distressing that some people have such strong negative reactions to our attempt to be of greater service to the community,” Olson said.

That kind of remark sets off church neighbors like Don Rimlinger, who lives on the same private road where Salem is located.

“It’s irritating,” Rimlinger said. “You go to a meeting and they’ve got all these parents there. It’s like you’re anti-Christian or something.”

Actually, Rimlinger added, if his kids were not grown already, he would likely send them to Salem. But the school has grown so large that traffic is hindering his driveway.

“They park on both sides of the road,” he said of the parents. “They are dropping off kids and parking cars and kids go running across the road. Then the ladies double-park and stop and talk. This happens two or three times a day. My mother is 91 years old and she lives here. What if there was an emergency and we couldn’t get out of the driveway? You just feel like enough is enough.”

But the horse community is not unified against Salem.

Sandy Strasbaugh said she has lived on Ridgeline Road, which she describes as “the epitome of Orange Park Acres,” for 20 years. She also owns a horse and attends Salem Lutheran Church.

“I am part of the horsy community,” Strasbaugh said. “If you were to see what good that school does. . . . It affords an education to many children here in Orange Park Acres, a place where the children feel safe and are being taught ethical, moral instruction.”

She and Salem officials noted that the school last year won accreditation from the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, a two-year process that measured curriculum, faculty, administration and facilities against national standards.

Living four blocks from the school, Strasbaugh said the traffic does not bother her and she blames the feud on a “small, little clique” of people.

Others see the incremental nature of Salem’s growth as the real threat.

“Things don’t happen overnight,” said Mark Sandford, a major real estate agent in the area. “They have a tendency to do a little here and a little there and 20 years later we go, ‘Wow, what happened?’ All we’re trying to do is fight for our lifestyle. It’s a pretty unique kind of place.”

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School Plans

Some residents of Orange Park Acres are against the proposed expansion of a local private school. The addition would include a two-story, eight-classroom building and a multipurpose facility.

Salem Lutheran Church & School

Founded: 1969

Acres: Five

Grades: Day care, preschool and kindergarten through eighth grade

Number of students: 555 (including day care); 401 on campus at any given time

Proposed growth: Up to 726 students; 611 on campus at any one time

Local angle: 60% of students come from within a 2-mile radius of school

Sources: Salem Lutheran Church & School, City of Orange, Orange Park Acres Assn.; Researched by LESLEY WRIGHT/For The Times