Redevelopment near Agoura High School under fire

Build affordable homes or put up a parking lot?



Is student parking at Agoura High School more important than affordable housing for teachers who work at local schools and supposedly can’t afford to live in the area?

The question has put the city and school district at loggerheads with local residents.

On Jan. 25, Agoura Hills officials will host a workshop to unveil plans for a 16-unit townhome project at Easterly Road and Fountain Place near the high school called Fountain Place Villas. It’s a joint effort by the Las Virgenes School District and the Agoura Hills Redevelopment Agency (RDA).

“Our district has been a participant in the city’s redevelopment agency since its inception,” said district Superintendent Donald Zimring. “The district’s very excited at this type of collaboration in an effort to not only meet the city’s requirement for affordable housing but to also provide this remarkable incentive to attract some of the best teachers in California to our district.”

The city has a 65-year, $1 million lease with the school district to use the property for redevelopment needs.

Barbara Murphy, a resident of Annandale Townhomes next to Agoura High, believes the site would be more valuable as a school parking lot.

“I believe you should use your own vacant LVUSD land for needed additional Agoura High school parking, not to build homes for your staff,” Murphy told the Las Virgenes school board at its Jan. 11 meeting. She said the new performing arts center being built at the school took away 80-110 existing parking spaces, and even though the new affordable home project calls for street widening and additional parking on Easterly Road, there will still be a net loss of 50 to 70 parking spaces at the school.

Murphy, who helped found Citizens Against New Local Taxes in 1994, is mobilizing residents to attend next week’s meeting.

Who’s the city to say that one group of people needs affordable housing more than another? she asked.

History of redevelopment

City officials have been looking for ways to build affordable housing for teachers and other public workers for several years. According to Agoura Hills RDA guidelines, the city must build varying degrees of affordable housing or offer other forms of assistance to low- or moderate-income residents.

Currently, the city provides low- to moderate-income earners the chance to either rehabilitate their existing homes or buy new homes using shared equity programs and down payment subsidies. RDA funds also help pay for infrastructure projects, including the Kanan interchange project and the widening of the Reyes Adobe bridge. Some RDA money is funneled back into local schools.

But the school district needs more parking, not affordable housing, said Murphy, who believes the parking problems at Agoura High are exacerbated by increased traffic from out-of-district students attending the school.

Superintendent Donald Zimring said the city has a legal obligation to develop the affordable housing. The school needs the lease revenue to shore up its budget.

“The school district and city have partnered together in helping to meet both needs,” Zimring said.

New housing for teachers and district employees will help “attract the best and brightest when salaries have been cut,” Zimring said.

Donald Roser lives close to the proposed housing development and opposes it.

“School should be for children,” Roser said.

Parking solution rejected

Murphy said in an e-mail to The Acorn that the city approached the Annandale Homeowners Association board last year about constructing parking on Annandale property. The HOA rejected the idea.

“The school is already close enough. The area they wanted is right outside scores of our residents’ bedroom windows and the noise level is already nearly unbearable,” Murphy said. “We told them to find land elsewhere. They should be building a parking lot to handle their parking deficit problems,” Murphy said.

Zimring said additional parking at Annandale would have been beneficial to both the school and the homeowners association. The district would have paid to maintain the lot and the HOA would have received additional income, he said.

The city’s affordable housing workshop is 6: 30 p. m. Tues., Jan. 25 in classroom A at Agoura High School.

Agoura Hills Mayor Harry Schwarz said that Murphy is arguing her case in the “wrong arena.”

“Her grievances need to be addressed at a school board meeting, not at our workshop,” Schwarz said.



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