Neighbors Unite to Oppose Conversion of School Site to Housing

On the boarded-up and dusty grounds of the abandoned Dana Junior High School in Point Loma, the San Diego Unified School District wants to break ground on its first residential building project--a 99-year lease for rental units to bolster district revenues.

But as a test case for the district’s plan to develop other closed school sites, the Dana plan is failing with local residents and may face extensive review by city planners.

A group called the Community Coalition for Dana, formed in March to call for more security at the often-vandalized site, has filed suit charging the district with trying to push forward illegally without preparing an environmental impact report (EIR). Residents complain that they don’t know enough about the project--except that they know they don’t like the sound of it.

“It’s obviously pathetic when you have to sue your own school board to get them to listen, to obey the law,” said Claudia Engstrom, leader of the coalition. “The community has to resort to being watchdogs.”

Just before the coalition asked for a temporary restraining order to prevent the district from demolishing the school building, the district agreed to prepare an environmental assessment, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act. But the district maintains that it can sign a lease with its prospective developer without any further reports, and the coalition still is suing to keep the contract from being signed. Coalition members have recommended no alternatives for the 13-acre site on Narragansett Avenue; more than anything, they just want to slow the district down.

“This is the kind of lease that England had with Hong Kong, for God’s sake,” said Jerry Cluff, an attorney for the coalition. “I can’t see blithely going into this like it was a three-year lease . . . Before the district starts selling off our children’s inheritance, (it) ought to have all the facts.”

District officials said the proposal has been under study since the school was closed two years ago. It is part of a plan to develop six closed schools. The other five schools are Farnum Elementary on Cass Street in Pacific Beach, Cleveland Elementary on Lake Atlin Drive in San Carlos, Scripps Elementary on Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla, Muir Elementary on Mohawk Street in the College area and Grantville Elementary on Decena Drive in Grantville. All five are under short-term leases due to expire by December, 1986.

“We didn’t just slapdash this thing together,” said Christina Dyer, an attorney for the school district. “I think it’s interesting that they’re complaining that we’re demolishing (Dana), because it’s the community who told us to please do something about the building.”

Dana’s immediate neighbors would prefer that the site be turned into a park. Some fear that dense residential development, which they equate with condominiums, would add too much traffic and hurt the character of the neighborhood.

“Once you get condos, it’s not the same,” said Lucretia Mazela, who lives a block from the school on Milan Street. “It’s not the homey little place that we have here . . . This is choice property, and we’ve been here a long time.”

Some of the project’s opponents have suggested retaining the building in case a new school is needed someday, although district enrollment projections forecast a continuing decline in the number of high school and junior high students in the Point Loma area for the next five years.

District officials say they need the Dana development to pay for maintenance of other schools and to build new schools in areas where enrollment is growing, because the district has been unable to issue bonds to fund new buildings since tax-cutting Proposition 13 was approved by California voters in 1978.

The district faces other obstacles beside the disgruntled residents.

J.V. Ward, director of property management for the district, said officials assumed they would be able to lease the Dana property under its current zoning, which would allow multi-family dwellings and about 12 units per acre. All San Diego schools are currently zoned for multi-family houses.

But the Peninsula Community Planning Board, concerned over rapid development throughout Point Loma, plans to recommend to the city Planning Commission on Aug. 1 that the site be rezoned for single-family homes so it matches the neighborhood.

The city Planning Department also plans to recommend a study to see if a zoning change is needed. “We’re looking at not just frittering away these sites,” said planner Bill Levin. But he said even a zoning change to single-family would not rule out a plan for multi-family units that conform to the general character of the area.

Local activists see the zoning change as the only way to keep the school district in line in Point Loma.

“We’re pretty unhappy with the school board,” said Kingsley Boyd, outgoing chairman of the Point Loma Village Assn. “I think if the city were to adopt something like this (for all the sites), it would solve a lot of problems in the future.”

But changing the zoning could have “a tremendous effect” on the district’s plans, Ward said, because there is “no way” a developer of single-family homes could afford to pay $392,000 a year for the lease. That is the amount developer Ted Odmark bid on the lease, anticipating that he would build multi-family units on the site.

Odmark said he was willing to design a project to comply with restrictions on the site and please the local residents.

“I think if I could put a tent over the project, build it, and then take the tent off, the community would be delighted with it,” he said. He said his plans call for 8 to 11 units per acre.