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Council Watch
City objects to Broadway move, cites muni code
Officials say Muir site lacks adequate parking
By Jessica Lyons
The city of San Jose has joined the army of opposition protesting Broadway High School's move to the John Muir campus, alleging that the site does not provide enough parking spaces for the high school's students, employees and visitors.
"The proposed Continuation High School does not conform to the City of San Jose Municipal Code/Zoning Ordinance because it does not meet Municipal Code/Zoning Ordinance parking requirements," Joseph Horwedel, deputy director of planning, wrote in a letter to San Jose Unified School District's Ron Edwards. "The City does not consider the Initial Study to be complete nor the Mitigated Negative Declaration to be adequate as it relates to parking impacts."
Opposition: The full text of the city's letter to the San Jose Unified School District.
The Board of Education approved moving Broadway High School onto the John Muir Middle School campus at its Nov. 18 meeting. Members of Community Action in Robertsville, state legislators and now city officials have expressed concerns about traffic and parking problems associated with the move.
San Jose's municipal code requires one parking space per teacher and employee on a middle-school campus. The parking requirement for high schools, however, is one parking space per teacher and employee, plus one for every seven students. Horwedel says that this means the city would require 105 parking spaces for the new continuation high school (50 for students, 49 for staff and six for visitors). The district proposes adding only 60 parking spaces.
San Jose Unified School District officials, however, say a continuation school does not need the same amount of parking spaces as a mainstream high school.
"There was a parking study completed at the current Broadway High School, looking at the needs of faculty, visiting staff, the young mothers program and the students, and it concluded that a minimum of 60 spaces was adequate for the needs of Broadway High School," said Maureen Davidson, a spokeswoman for San Jose Unified. "There is not a standard for continuation high schools. This is a unique school, so instead of looking at a standard, a study was done of the actual needs in the 10 years of Broadway's real existence in its current site."
Although city officials said the project does not provide enough parking spaces, the district can still proceed with the move, Horwedel said.
"Our letter carries the same weight as the concerns of the residents surrounding the site," Horwedel says. "I think our issues are important, but we don't have a way to override the district's decision."
Broadway's move to the Speak and Branham lanes site is slated for March 2000.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
