Debate Rages Over School Plan

No one disputes that Calabasas needs a new middle school. A.E. Wright Middle School, the city’s only junior high and one of just two in the school district, has 1,700 students crammed into a campus designed for 1,200.

But what has polarized residents is whether a vacant 31-acre parcel at Mulholland Highway and Paul Revere Road--the site selected by the Las Virgenes Unified School District--is safe and practical. A geologist hired by the district found historical evidence of three landslides on the site.

In a larger sense, both sides are paying for the area’s growth, observers say. Housing developments approved by Los Angeles County years ago and recently completed have added hundreds of residential units--and families with school-age children--to the area.

Officials also expect 4,000 new homes in the next decade or two in the district, which has scarce flatland for new schools.

Many students at the new middle school would come from the eastern part of the district, where 691 homes have been built in the last decade and more than a 1,000 others have been approved.

“What was done 20 years ago is now coming home to roost,” said David M. Brown, a Calabasas planning commissioner. “The school district doesn’t have good land. Other [sites] require a lot of grading. It’s not going to be cheap to build schools out here. It’s just a bad situation.”

Ironically, many residents came to the Santa Monica Mountains because they wanted their children to attend the well-regarded Las Virgenes schools and to escape the traffic, crime and crowded schools they associated with Los Angeles, Brown said.

But some of what they sought to avoid has caught up with them. Every morning at Lupin Hill Elementary School on Adamor Road, for example, sheriff’s deputies are needed to direct the traffic of parents dropping off their children. All 10 of the district’s elementary and middle schools use portable classrooms.

School officials and hired consultants insist that, with modifications, the new site could be made safe for a $15-million middle school. Construction could begin in 18 months and be completed by early 2003.

The California Department of Education has given the district a green light for the site, and on Tuesday the district unanimously voted to certify a final environmental impact report on the parcel.

Construction would be funded by Measure R, a $93-million bond passed by voters in November 1997. The plan calls for a campus that could accommodate 800 to 1,000 students, with one-third of the property left as open space. Officials reviewed and rejected eight alternate parcels.

District officials said the funds would also be used to build two new elementary schools, one at the west end of Parkway Calabasas and the other on a parcel yet to be purchased.

But opponents argue that the middle school site is unstable and would cost too much to prepare for construction. They also fear that the school would create more traffic and noise in an area that already has one private and two public schools.

“Developers have run screaming from that land because it’s so difficult and expensive to develop,” said Karmen Brower, an opposition leader who lives near the site.

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Officials and supporters dismiss the critics as NIMBYs who live above the site and don’t want a new school to ruin their hillside views.

“My sense is that the majority of [people] who are most opposed live close to the site. We already know that homeowners near other [proposed] sites would be just as vehement in their opposition,” said Donald M. Zimring, deputy superintendent of the Las Virgenes district. “We have no vested interest in the site. We have a vested interest to find a site that will serve our children and that we will bring on line in a reasonable period of time.”

Some residents view the proposed site as a good compromise.

“I’m the first to admit there are no perfect sites left to build on. This is the best site,” said Shirley Brown, 44, of Calabasas.

The lot has been appraised at $5 million, said Carey Hellman, a co-owner who is willing to sell the land to the school district. Since 1995, Hellman has owned the site at 22450 Mulholland Highway, land that is unincorporated but surrounded by Calabasas.

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At Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting, where district consultants said all environmental concerns could be mitigated, opponents were unimpressed and spoke of a possible lawsuit.

Gary Gitlin, an attorney, said he wanted the district to pay more attention to traffic concerns raised by Calabasas officials.

“They’re sitting there with this ‘Siegfried and Roy’ show saying there’s not going to be an increase in traffic--it’s scary,” said Gitlin, 48, of Calabasas.

The controversy over the proposed middle school site is a portent of things to come because of the lack of available flatland, said Mike Tingus, a Calabasas resident who works in commercial real estate.

“The sites the school district will have to find will be very consistent with what was found at the Hellman site. They will be very controversial,” he said.