Saratoga News

Neighbors are appealing One World School's move to church

Opposition doesn't oppose kids, but they hate traffic

Hearing set for Dec. 3

By Sarah Lombardo

Don't get them wrong. Neighbors appealing the approval of plans for One World Montessori School to move into Saratoga next January don't dislike children or Montessori schools. Many of them have children, a few of whom attend Montessori schools. What they oppose, they said, is the increase in traffic that will accompany One World's move to the Immanuel Lutheran Church at 14103 Saratoga Ave. The matter is scheduled to go before the City Council for review Dec. 3.

"The people from the school are very nice, and I'm sure the children from the school are very nice, but it's basically the traffic and safety issue that is the problem," said Fiona Rodrigues, the Loma Rio drive resident who filed the Nov. 6 appeal. "That road is already congested."

Rodrigues and some 100 other Immanuel Lutheran Church neighbors crowded the Civic Theater Oct. 22 and voiced their concerns about the proposal to the Planning Commission. The project calls for the school, currently located in Cupertino but facing eviction when its lease is up at the end of the year, to move into the existing eight classrooms and two multipurpose rooms at the church. About 150 students, ranging in age from 18 months to 12 years old, would attend the school. A portion of the lower parking lot at the back of the church would also be used for a playground. In a report to planning commissioners, city staffers recommended approval of the plan, citing the width of that part of Saratoga Avenue as a means of dealing with traffic and the project's conformity to city codes as reason to approve it. Commission members agreed, voting 5-0 to approve the project, but added several conditions to the permit including: parents dropping off their children must place placards in their dashboards to identify themselves as One World parents, enabling neighbors to make sure parents aren't using their streets as shortcuts to get to the Immanuel Lutheran Church; the school must also assign a traffic monitor to stand out on Saratoga Avenue during peak drop-off and pick-up times to help traffic move as smoothly as possible; the permit will be reviewed in June 1998, with no automatic renewal; and the permit cannot be applied to any other school but One World Montessori and will be void if One World moves out before June 1998.

Rodrigues said that she and many of the neighbors think that regardless of the staff report's suggestions for restriping Saratoga Avenue in front of the church, the traffic caused by the parents of about 150 students will cause a hazard. And adding a stacking lane for parents waiting to turn into the driveway of the church, another suggestion in the report, will only make it worse. "People already try to pass [other cars] in that area because the lane widens and they get impatient," she said. "A stacking lane will only make people think it is a passing lane, and we'll have even more accidents."

Sam Fisher, a Worden Way resident, agreed. "I just know that from our driveway, you sometimes have to take your life in your hands to get out of Worden Way," he said. "I think [the Planning Commission] took a nonchalant attitude toward this."

Not so, said chairwoman Margaret Patrick, who said that the commissioners were all very sensitive to the neighbors' worries but made the best decision they could. "I think the neighbors' concerns are justified," she said. "I think we felt that we put the limitations and the guidelines on [the approval] that would best address those concerns."

But Patrick said that she and other commissioners were not surprised to hear that the matter had been appealed. "I think that I felt, and probably most of the commissioners felt, there was so much concern and so many people who showed up that we thought they would," she said.

Rodrigues and Fisher said they both felt the commission should have considered the issue more carefully.

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