Pinewood council decision appropriate

The Los Altos City Council made the right move last week when members denied a proposal from Pinewood School officials to expand their campus along Fremont Avenue.

For years, the prestigious private school has coexisted peacefully with the neighborhood. But its success has drawn higher enrollment and greater needs. Pinewood officials were asking for expansion to an adjacent lot to build five new buildings. All told, their plans called for accommodating 160 students.

Surrounding residents, fearing Pinewood would continue to buy up surrounding lots on Fremont for further expansion, united to protest what they felt was a deterioration of their neighborhood’s environment.

Referring to the area by its historic Costello Acres name, residents reminded city officials of the area’s unique zoning that allows among the largest lots in Los Altos, but also is susceptible to subdividing for private enterprise - an element that Pinewood was obviously taking advantage of.

Pinewood’s growing pains have become the entire neighborhood’s. Complaints about traffic congestion exist even now. Pinewood does not sit along a main thoroughfare but along what amounts to a residential side street that is not busy when there is no school traffic. Pinewood is also a commute school - virtually everyone drives their children to and from the campus. Adding another 40 students to the mix promises even more traffic problems.

School president Scott Riches has said Pinewood’s traffic mitigation plans that called, for instance, for a long driveway to take motorists off Fremont, would have improved, not worsened, the problem.

But the council correctly decided, in reviewing California Environmental Quality Act guidelines, that traffic mitigation plans were inadequate and this residential neighborhood stood to be overwhelmed by what amounts to a private business. Further, councilmembers were right to order Pinewood to stick to the 108 enrollment figure required by the current use permit rather than the current enrollment of 125. And the council plans to review the current neighborhood zoning to see if safeguards can be employed to prevent future lot conversions to private business use.

Although the council did the right thing, we wonder why councilmembers’ decision on the Pinewood expansion proposal was so different from that of the planning commission, which voted 4-1 last month in favor of it.

Planning commissioners could have been more focused in answering whether Pinewood’s proposal complied with current regulations, rather than mulling neighborhood impacts. But they ultimately recommended council approval.

Why the disconnect on this major issue? This could be a subject for a future joint meeting between the council and the commission.