Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Town Council turns down an appeal by Challenger School on Hick Road site

Confident officials shelled out money to buy property

Neighbors fought approval

By Clarence Cromwell

A victory for Hicks Road residents left Challenger School Vice President Dustin Baker dismayed after the Sept. 16 Town Council meeting.

The council sided with residents by upholding a Planning Commission decision that Challenger's proposed school on Hicks Road doesn't fit into the town's general plan or the county's Hillside Specific Plan.

Residents have been fighting to keep Challenger School from building and to stop Los Gatos Christian Church School, just up the road, from expanding its enrollment by 230 students and adding a new gym and 10 portable classrooms.

But the school expected to win so handily that it moved forward with the project in August, purchasing 76 acres along Hicks and Shannon roads while appealing the Planning Commission's refusal of the project.

"We did not have a contingency plan," Baker said.

Baker said the school was confident before the council decision because of the numbers of supporters it drummed up to pack the chambers during council meetings, including the one held last week, and send hundreds of form letters to the town in support of the project. He also expected the council to follow its staff's recommendation to accept the project.

Los Gatos Christian Church got a break Aug. 5, when the council reversed Planning Commission refusal of its project--a decision neighbors now claim defies the General Plan.

Challenger School wasn't as lucky as the church has been.

The council majority last week rejected Challenger, saying they want to preserve the rural atmosphere in the Hicks Road area.

Councilmember Joanne Benjamin added that a Challenger School somewhere else in town would be OK, but not at that site.

A parade of project supporters told the council that the school would be a good neighbor and that the competition would make local schools better and offer parents more choices. They pointed to a traffic report by TJKM Transportation Consultants that concluded Hicks Road can handle the added traffic from both the school and the church expansion.

Hicks Road residents insist that the added traffic will make the narrow, tree-shaded rural road unsafe. And they say a school will ruin the countrified atmosphere that makes their neighborhood special.

Mayor Randy Attaway told the standing-room-only crowd packed into the council chambers last week that the "real issue" at stake was "encroachment into a rural area."

Steve Blanton, who voted to allow both the church expansion and Challenger's project, said, "Of the options, I thought Challenger School was the better one."

Palatial homes on the property will hurt the atmosphere of the area more than the school, because the school would have been concealed by a small hill at the proposed site, Blanton said.

It's possible that homes could be built on the land, for which the school paid $4.4 million and now doesn't know what to do with.

Baker said Challenger hasn't made any plans for the land yet.

Challenger at first held options to buy the property if it got town approval for the project, but it was forced to buy when the options expired.

Escrow on the properties closed Aug. 16, about 11 days after the council approved the church expansion.

In addition to the 44-acre Kring Ranch, where the school was to be built, Challenger bought the property next-door, a site originally considered for the school but passed over because its Shannon Road frontage presents more traffic problems than the Kring property. Baker said the school wanted the extra land to ensure that it would have good neighbors.

Now Challenger is stuck with 76 acres of land that the town probably won't allow to be developed with anything but houses on large lots.

According to the General Plan, development on Challenger's property should involve one house for every five acres. With town approval, Challenger could put 15 houses on the property.

School officials will be busy in the coming months, however, finding a facility to replace their San Jose Challenger School, 1325 Bouret Drive, that closes at the end of this school year.

Meanwhile, councilmembers agreed to delay until Oct. 7 the routine second reading of their decision to overturn the Planning Commission's rejection of the Los Gatos Christian Church expansion so that they can read arguments submitted by neighbor Michael Burke arguing that the expansion violates the general plan.