By Kathleen Acuff

The Los Altos Planning Commission last week approved Pinewood School’s plans for its lower campus and sent them on to the city council. The plans are to redevelop the current facilities at 477 Fremont Ave. (also known as 1012 Campbell Ave.), expand onto the adjacent lot at 450 Covington Road, establish a 35-student pre-kindergarten program and enroll a total of 160 pre-kindergarten through second-grade students.

The commission recommended that the council approve Pinewood’s expansion design, its application for a conditional use permit, and an amendment to the city’s general plan if the school meets certain requirements. The most notable of these is to ensure that adding 35 students does not increase traffic on the streets in its neighborhood.

In addition, the commission recommended that the council modify Public and Community Facility zoning code to avoid overconcentration in large-lot (R1-20) areas, particularly in Costello Acres, where the lower and middle Pinewood campuses are. Commissioners directed staff to explore ways to avoid locating many PCFs in one area.

Last week’s meeting was a continuation of the March 3 hearing, at which the environmental study for the plan was approved. The April 7 decision was reached in a 4-1 vote after several hours of discussion.

The commission is to monitor traffic to the site once a year for the first five years after the expansion and every five years thereafter. If school traffic exceeds its current level, the commission may require Pinewood to alter its traffic program or trim enrollment at the lower campus to the current number — 125 students.

Senior planner Curtis Banks said it’s up to the school to find ways to maintain the current level of traffic to and from the lower campus. Traffic counts will be taken at both driveways of the lower campus to establish a baseline for comparisons before the council hears the matter, most likely in late May, according to James Walgren, community development director.

In addition to reining in traffic, Pinewood must also make the northwestern portion of the north quad on Covington Road off-limits for play. It cannot be used as a playground or a sports area and must be landscaped in such a way as to “preclude (its) being used” in those ways, commissioners decided.

Many neighbors of Pinewood’s two Fremont campuses fear that the private school’s long-range plan is to take over the area bounded by Fremont, Campbell, Covington and El Monte Road.

Walgren said, “That’s going to be hard to do now that we have this master plan in the public record. That was the purpose of getting (Pinewood’s) long-term growth plan. … That doesn’t mean things can’t change. We stressed that we’re talking about the near-term. If they came in in five years and said they changed their long-term plans, that wouldn’t get approved.”

Pinewood’s president, Scott Riches, said the school is interested in two other properties on the same street: 357 Fremont, adjacent to the middle campus (grades 3-6), and 451 Fremont, next to the lower campus (kindergarten through second grade).

The Pinewood master plan approved by the commission states that, if purchased, 357 Fremont would be used for parking and traffic circulation and 451 Fremont would be used as a buffer zone.

The plan is for the lower campus only and does not restrict plans for the middle campus in any way.

Costello Acres is zoned for R1-20 lots - about a half-acre each - and are also wider than most residential lots in the city.

Neighbor Jack Weldon said, “This isn’t about traffic, it’s about zoning, because the zoning causes the traffic. This is a clash between beautiful Costello Acres and this PCF.”

PCFs are churches, schools, hospitals and other facilities that benefit the public. Los Altos zoning law requires a PCF site to be at least one acre and located where “desirable or essential to public health, safety, comfort, convenience, prosperity or welfare” but not “detrimental to the health, safety, comfort, convenience, prosperity or welfare of persons residing in the vicinity, or injurious to property or improvements in the vicinity.” In addition, a PCF must not be a retail concern and must add only “limited traffic” to the area in which it is located.

The commission found the Pinewood plan in accordance with the zoning requirements. However, many homeowners at the successive hearings told the commission that “enough is enough.”

Walgren said PCFs are “pretty evenly distributed” throughout the city, although the area around Pinewood is also home to St. Williams Catholic Church, Covington Elementary School and Rosita Park, where at least one pool may soon be built.

Neighbor Jamie Dinkelacker said he was “very disappointed” by commissioners’ “exceptionally narrow focus” on traffic rather than on “the violation of the use permit and the expansion that will make it worse.”

Randall Hull was the only commissioner to vote against the expansion plan.

“I’m not anti-Pinewood - they run very good schools, they’re assets to this community. It’s just the impact of expansion on this neighborhood that concerns me. R1-20 lots are diminishing commodities - they should be made available to residents first. I support where Pinewood is, but I don’t want to see them expand and take up all residential lots,” he said.

Some neighbors of the school are upset that enrollment at the lower campus has been 17 students more than the current use permit allows for some time.

Hull said Friday that the commissioners did not see a need for Pinewood to reduce enrollment at its lower campus from 125 to 108 “after all those years.”

Barbara Gustafson, who has lived in the neighborhood for 33 years, said some residents “feel like we’re getting swallowed up (and) our little community is overwhelmed by public community facilities.” She added that reconfiguring the Foothill Expressway-El Monte intersection and the Springer-Berry area to calm traffic has “trapped” residents in Costello Acres.

“We can’t move in and out as easily as we did before, so it’s a lot more frantic than it used to be,” she said. “Pinewood is a good school, an asset, and it’s already there. We feel very passionately that the property at 450 Covington stay as it is.”