Calabasas

Council frets
over project’s
public school
By Michael Picarella
Acorn Staff Writer

Plans for a new public school in Calabasas may face a rocky road. New Millennium Homes is developing a housing project called The Oaks, a 550-unit gated subdivision that’s under construction above Calabasas Park Estates.

California law says public schools must be open to everyone. A school located behind private gates might be considered inaccessible and unacceptable by California law, unless it’s reachable by kids, parents and others.

New Millennium hopes to create ample accessibility for students attending the school. But if the school isn’t constructed because it’s gated, already crowded Bay Laurel Elementary School will become even more crowded with New Millennium kids.

"I have a real concern with that," said Calabasas Mayor Pro Tem James Bozajian at the city council meeting last week. "That’s not acceptable in my view," he said.

Officials said if the New Millennium school isn’t constructed, the site would become open space. If the school is built, the gates might have to come down. Bozajian doesn’t want angry homeowners, he said, who might come to the city in the future and complain that they bought homes in a gated community that lost its gates.

"I want to be up front with people," Bozajian said. "I want people to understand what the worst possible scenario is so that they are not here in a couple of years complaining as to why we didn’t inform them."

City Councilwoman Janice Lee suggested that access be available to the school not through the gates but rather through a route off Las Virgenes Road.

But it might not be an option. "There’s the physical problem of getting up there (from Las Virgenes). The grades are very steep. It would be a very massive grading program to come up from that side," said Calabasas Community Development Director Steve Craig.

It’s unlikely the state wouldn’t allow a public school to be built behind gates, according to city attorney Charles Vose. "‘Open to the public’ in my opinion means anybody from the public can go drive up to that gate and say, ‘I want to go see the school’ and they don’t have to report anything. They don’t have to identify anything," he said.

"Anything you do to interfere with the public’s access by saying ‘Show me some identification’—that’s going to interfere with their right," Vose said.

Bozajian wants the issue addressed as soon as possible.

Calabasas resident and city council candidate Barry Groveman spoke during the public comment section of the meeting and said he thinks the city attorney, a city councilmember and possibly a New Millennium representative should contact the state to get some answers.

Getting it solved, Groveman said, is important. "And it’s not going to get resolved by writing letters and trying to interpret things. It’s time just to move it along," he said.

Mayor Lesley Devine liked the idea and said she’d try to make it happen.