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Planners give preschool thumbs down because of traffic problems
By Jeff Kearns
Planning commissioners denied Mariposa Montessori's request to open a preschool at a church on Ferris Avenue last week, citing the same traffic concerns that have raised neighbors' hackles over the project.
Mariposa's board president, Joanne Varni, says the preschool will appeal its application for a conditional-use permit to the Town Council. Mariposa was formed by parents of children who attended Casa Maria preschool, which closed its doors at the end of the school year last spring.
Mariposa has already opened one preschool at a church in Willow Glen, but after an exhaustive site search, the only available location they found in Los Gatos was Faith Lutheran Church--which is in a neighborhood that residents say is plagued by speeding cars trying to get around the traffic on nearby Los Gatos Boulevard.
In July, the commission told the preschool to do a traffic study, create a carpool plan for parents and come up with a system to address neighbor's concerns over noise at the school. Commissioners continued Mariposa to a meeting in November, but Varni sent a letter in mid-August requesting to speak to the commission at the next meeting.
Varni said in the letter that Mariposa wouldn't be able to pay for a traffic study because the school couldn't afford it. Traffic studies can cost upwards of $10,000. The school also came up with a carpool plan and other ways to reduce traffic and noise.
Commissioners weren't swayed, voting 5-2 for denial. Paul Bruno and Lee Quintana (voting nay) said they favored trying to work out a better solution for the school. "Nothing could be better for the town than a preschool, and nothing could be better than a plan that calms traffic. I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive," Bruno said.
Other commissioners said it was time to forward the issue to the Town Council, which can decide how the town will approach the traffic-study issue.
"I had expected to try to find some middle ground," commission chairwoman Laura Nachison said. "We're in a hopeless muddle now, and we have anecdotal evidence on both sides of the traffic issue."
Varni said that although the school could not pay for a traffic study, it would be able to share the cost of making traffic impact mitigations in the neighborhood. Community development director Paul Curtis said that the town may be able to piggyback on an existing traffic study of the Englewood area that was done by the county.
Dozens of neighbors showed up to trash the plan, saying it would bring more cars into their neighborhood, and both sides accused the other of not meeting to go over the issues. Neighbors complained that it sometimes takes several minutes to back out of their driveways, that they're afraid to let their kids walk on the streets in the area, and that their pleas for a traffic-control solution have fallen on deaf ears at the county and the town.
"When we were first moving our things into the house, our neighbor ran out and yelled passionately, 'Don't let your 3-year-old into the street, I've had three cats killed here!' " said Ferris Avenue resident Kathryn Rose.
Mariposa's Varni says the school would be willing to take a hard-line stance against parents who don't obey the carpooling agreement, or who drive too fast, by putting identification stickers on parents' cars and expelling toddlers if parents aren't following the school's rules of the road.
The school, which would enroll up to 50 children in the morning and 50 in the afternoon, wouldn't start until after the morning peak traffic hours are over and would be out by the beginning of the afternoon commute.
After the meeting, Varni said Mariposa has already had meetings with some neighbors and that they'll be trying to come up with a mutually acceptable solution to slow down traffic in the area before the matter comes back to the council.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
