Pictured: opponents of a school on Palm Street showed solidarity by wearing red at Tuesday night's town council meeting.
by Timothy Rutt
The Arroyo Pacific Academy’s petition for a conditional use permit for its Palm Street location was voted down by the Altadena Town Council tonight.
Just like the land use committee meeting two weeks ago, the community center was packed with supporters and opponents of the school. However, there weren't the emotional outbursts that characterized the Sept. 6 meeting.
Council chair Sandra Thomas ran the meeting with a strict hand: Arroyo Pacific Acadey owner Philip Clarke had seven minutes to make his case. He could follow with three supporters, three minutes each. The opposition could field four speakers, three minutes each. Clarke then had three minutes to make a final statement.
Clarke largely demurred to his land use attorney, Liz Hanks. Hanks wanted to clarify that schools were a conditionally permitted use in a location zoned for a single family residence, and responded to several statements made at the land use committee meeting.
Coleen Sterritt of the Palm Street Area Resident’s Association (PSARA), which opposes the school, reiterated the resident’s theme that they’ve already endured a school on the property in 2008-2009, and know from experience that it won’t work. Sahag-Mesrob Armenian Christian School operated on the property that year without permits and was closed down by the county.
One of the recurrent complaints of residents was that the bowl-shaped property amplified noise in the quiet neighborhood, and that was one thing that made them wary of any school at that location. In fact, according to PSARA’s Nancy Rothwell, they only found out that Clarke was purchasing the property because neighbors overheard a conversation on the campus that had carried to nearby homes.
The only disturbance came during Clarke’s summation, retierating his concerns for the neighbor’s misgivings, when some of the opponents of the school waved their “No School on Palm” signs, muttering “lies.”
Councilman Gino Sund said that, in Altadena, 90 percent of the parcels are zoned R-1, or single family residential. There were only a few things one could do in an R-1, Sund said; but when a CUP is granted to a property, there’s a “large laundry list” of things that can be done, because it has to cover every contingency in the county, everything from desert to urban core. But just because a CUP says something can be done on a property, doesn’t mean the use is appropriate for a given property, Sund said.
Councilman Jamie Bissner was the only council vote in support of the CUP. Bissner said that he was educated in private school, and has lived just four doors from Eliot Middle School for 27 years, and did not consider it a bad experience.
Note: we have added the picture since this story first appeared.
