Second in a series
Re “How Should Planners View a School’s Large Jump in Size”
[Editor’s Note: Following previous rejections by the Planning Commission, a hearing will be convened in Council Chambers tonight at 7 o’clock to consider a plea by The Help Group to increase the size of its 400-student campus to 650 at 12095 Washington Blvd.]
Here is the quandary confronting Planning Commissioners entering tonight’s 7 o’clock meeting in Council Chambers with The Help Group school on Washington Boulevard:
“We have to decide whether the total school of 650 students will produce too much traffic or too much noise,” says Commissioner John Kuechle.
“I am particularly vehement,” said the soft-spoken commissioner, “that in her prepared remarks, the head of The Help Group said, ‘We always knew when we came to you 12 years ago and applied for our first permit that we were eventually going to want to expand the school and add these 250 new students.’
“If The Help Group knew that at the time, they should have told the city.The city then should have studied the impact of the full 650 students.
Would Project Have Been Killed?
“I don’t know what the outcome would have been,” said Mr. Kuechle. “Nobody does. The fact that The Help Group didn’t say anything at the time suggests to me they were concerned that might have gotten them turned down.
“Now The Help Group is saying, ‘We already have approval for the first 450 kids. Don’t worry about them anymore. Just decide if the new 250 are a problem.’
“The question I asked two meetings ago was, let’s take an example. One of the traffic people had come up with a 3,000-student school that wanted to add one class of 30 kids. He said when you do that, you only have to look at whether the traffic of the new 30 kids will cause a problem.
“At that point, I said, ‘Let’s say you own the Howard Hughes hangar, which has all this space and currently is empty. You know you want to operate a 3,000-student school. It is safe to assume if you move 3,000 students into an empty hangar, the traffic those kids will produce is significant. Major mitigations will be required.
“I said, let’s assume the developer doesn’t want to do any mitigation. You are saying he comes to us for just one class. So you want to start a school with one class of 30 students. ‘Give me approval.’ You do the study. Arte 30 kids going to cause significant traffic? Almost certainly not. The applicant is approved.
“A week later,” said Mr. Kuechle, “he comes back and says, ‘I think I want a second class of another 30 kids.’ Of course, that also does not cause a problem.”
Smilingly, the Planning Ciommissioner interrupted himself. “I don’t think I have to go on. Eventually it gets up to a 3,000-student school, all by having us look at one little problem at a time.
“Do 30 kids cause a traffic problem? Of course they don’t. So 30 more is okay. But that doesn’t make any sense.
“You have to look at the entire project, and that is what we have to do with The Help Group tonight, look at the entire project.”
