Fears of traffic delay preschool hoping to open before this fall
Commission stalls permit application for studies
School replaces Casa Maria
By Jeff Kearns
A group of parents who had hoped to start a Montessori school to replace the now-closed Casa Maria school had their hopes put on hold last week, after planning commissioners delayed their application for a more complete plan for dealing with potential traffic problems.
In front of a packed chamber on July 28, commissioners voted 4-1 to continue the hearing until the Montessori school can do a traffic report on the neighborhood and draw up a mandatory carpooling plan for parents.
Commissioners want to know how many cars per day would enter and exit the site and how the mandatory carpooling system would work. If the school opens, commissioners said that they also want a neighborhood review after six months of operation.
Organizers were trying to open Mariposa Montessori School by this fall, but now the earliest they can come back to the Planning Commission will most likely be sometime in November. To open the Montessori, school officials first need to get a revised conditional use permit for the site that would outline uses and conditions for the school.
Executive Director Cindy Acker, who was recently hired to run the new school, says that if the Montessori school can't open its doors by this fall, then it probably won't have a chance to start up until fall 2000.
"The difficulty is that while families may be ready to enroll because their preschoolers are in need of a place, there are insufficient numbers of teachers in California, and [the Montessori level] is no exception," Acker said.
Mariposa wants to open a school for about 100 preschoolers, enrolling 50 each in morning and afternoon classes at Faith Lutheran Church on Ferris Avenue. Many neighbors said they didn't want the preschool in the neighborhood because they feared it would bring more traffic through the streets.
Looking for a compromise, commission chairwoman Laura Nachison suggested using a bus, but Acker said that wasn't possible for preschool children. Commissioners said they would consider approving the school if it could create and enforce an aggressive carpooling program that would bring in two to four children in each car.
Mariposa already has permission to open a Montessori school in Willow Glen this fall. That preschool is also at a church (Christ the Good Shepherd), but the use permit for that location didn't require a modification to house a preschool.
The Casa Maria closure displaced 162 children, and there were more than 500 families on the waiting list for a spot at the Prospect Avenue school. After the closure was announced, the group of parents trying to launch the new schools looked at dozens of potential sites around Los Gatos, but found that only Faith Lutheran was suitable for what they wanted.
Faced with what could amount to a one-year delay in launching the Los Gatos preschool, Mariposa board president Joanne Varni says she's not sure what's next for the group. "We still have an opportunity to open the school, and we feel we can address the issues that have come up," she said.
First, the board will have to decide if it can afford to pay for a traffic study for the site, which can be a huge expense.
Right now, the conditional use permit for the site, at 16548 Ferris Avenue, barely restricts anything. Originally approved by the Town Council in 1966, it only sets the number of seats in the church sanctuary and the number of spaces in the parking lot.
Commissioner Paul Bruno pointed out to neighbors that, although the church has been a good neighbor by all accounts for 33 years, it could be replaced by a much more active church if Faith Lutheran ever moved out. Although it's not a likely scenario, that would mean a new congregation could hold masses and other activities at almost any time of day with only the restrictions on the sanctuary and parking lot to worry about.
If the church's conditional use permit is revised to include use as a Montessori school, that will restrict traffic, hours of operation and other uses that aren't now regulated.
"I'm really uncomfortable with the open-ended CUP that currently exists," Bruno said.
Neighbors opposed to the plan say they don't want more cars zipping through their streets, which they say are already plagued by fast-moving traffic.
"There are already five schools in the neighborhood," said Spencer Avenue resident Mark Hawkins, speaking for the neighbors. "Tomorrow, who knows how many it would be?" Spencer said he was especially sensitive to traffic issues in the area because his son was hit by a car in April.
Acker, who said she was also sensitive to safety issues because she was still recovering from being hit by a truck, said the preschool could easily develop strategies to handle parents who don't drive safely, including using stickers to identify the cars of Mariposa parents and writing certain conditions into the school's contract with parents, so that if they don't drive safely they will have to take their children out of the school.
Commissioner Sandy Decker, who was the lone nay vote (commissioners Kathryn Morgan and Lee Quintana were absent), said she couldn't support the application because it isn't compatible with the land-use element of the General Plan, which states that the town shall protect existing neighborhoods.
Decker initially moved to deny the application, but that motion died for lack of a second. Commissioners instead continued the hearing, which means that Mariposa officials can't appeal the decision to the Town Council because there is no decision yet.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
