Pictured: cars line up to pick up students at Sahag-Mesrob's Palm St. campus Tuesday afternoon.
Los Angeles County zoning authorities have told Sahag-Mesrob Armenian Christian School that it is violating county zoning ordinances and will have to close next week, or start paying fines.
Bruce Durbin of Los Angeles County zoning enforcement said that the school -- which opened its Palm St. location on Sept. 2, to the surprise and consternation of the neighbors -- failed to get a conditional use permit (CUP) to operate in the largely-residential area. Durbin said it takes about a year to 18 months to complete the CUP process, and Sahag-Mesrob applied for the permit in May 2008, shortly after its $7 million purchase of the former Bienvenidos Children’s Center property.
The purchase of the property and plans for the school haven’t been secret -- announcements have appeared in the local Armenian press, real estate press releases, and there was a presentation at the Altadena Town Council in April. Still, residents around the property, at 183-205 E. Palm St., were surprised to see a fully-functioning school and a line of cars dropping off over 200 students the day after Labor Day.
Resident Coleen Sterritt said that, as far as advance warning of the school’s opening, there was “none whatsoever.” A Long Beach City College professor, Sterritt has been a homeowner there since 1997. The former Bienvenidos Children’s Center, which housed and educated abused and at-risk children at the site, was “a good neighbor,” Sterrritt said. “They were very accommodating to [the residents].”
“Sahag-Mesrob has been awful,” she said. “They’ve been very rude, and they just tell you what you want to hear ... they have not been upfront at all.”
The problems are many, Sterritt said. Palm is a narrow street, not meant for the large amount of drop-off and pick-up traffic. Residents have been blocked in their driveways in the morning, Sterritt said. The school, which occupies about 2 /12 acres, has about 240 students presently and announced plans for 800, she said. The nearby St. Mark’s Episcopal School has about 350 students on five acres.
According to LA County’s Durbin, the school had filed for a CUP but was in the “preliminary appraisal” process. After the opening of the school drew complaints from the neighbors, a zoning inspector looked at the property, and issued a notice of violation Sept. 16. Such a violation says that the school has a 15 day period to comply with the violation, or they must close or be fined, Durbin said. Continued violation may result in criminal charges. In addition, the planning staff who were working on the CUP have halted the permitting process until the problems are resolved.
The only out for Sahag-Mesrob, Durbin said, was to apply for a “clean hands waiver.” Such a waiver essentially means the school pleads ignorance of the zoning laws, but such a waiver is not always automatically granted.
A source close to local government tells Altadenablog that the county supervisors are walking a delicate balance here: on one hand, they want to be responsive to the neighbor’s complaints, but they also don’t want to offend the local Armenian community.
There's no word yet on if the school has informed parents of its predicament.
Sterritt, who helped write a flyer that has circulated through the neigborhood, is urging neighbors to contact the county supervisors, and planning and zoning departments quickly to register their complaints.
A call to Sahag-Mesrob seeking comment was not returned as of press time.
UPDATE 9/25 12 PM: Sterritt and Rachel Figuera, who made the presentation against the school's plans at this month's town council meeting, are circulating an updated new flyer (pdf document).
