Pinewood School won the planning commission’s recommendation last week to expand facilities on its campus at 477 Fremont Ave. and 1012 Campbell Ave., but it may have to cut enrollment there. The Los Altos City Council will consider the private school’s plans at an undetermined date.
With traffic the divisive point, the commission split 2-2 along gender lines on whether to allow the school to formalize its 20-year tradition of teaching 125 kindergarten through second-grade students at its lower campus. If the council turns down that request, Pinewood will have to reduce K-2 enrollment by 17 students next fall. Last May, the city council turned down the school’s request to add 35 preschoolers for a total enrollment of 160.
Pinewood’s original written agreement with the city specified 108 students on that campus, but since its opening in 1985 a gentleman’s agreement has allowed the higher enrollment as long as the kindergartners are in school only half a day.
Kate Disney and Phoebe Bressack favored the usual enrollment. Randall Hull, presiding in Bill Bocook’s absence, and Bruce Skov argued for fewer cars – and therefore fewer students - traveling through the neighborhood. Penny Lave was absent from the Jan. 19 meeting.
City staff recommended maintaining the current enrollment, saying that a traffic index showed an “imperceptible” 0.008 percent difference in the number of trips necessary to take 125 rather than 108 students to and from school. Hull pointed out that the difference is 31 trips in the morning and 20 in the afternoon.
The plans are to demolish the old facilities and construct three new buildings along Campbell and Fremont avenues, with a driveway near the corner. The total new building area would be 14,050 square feet, and all buildings except a two-story building on Fremont would be one story. The campus would have an internal play area bound by building wings and a separate kindergarten playground along the northern property line. The driveway would parallel Fremont then run toward a turnaround at the rear of the property. Twenty parking spaces would be marked along the western property line.
The commissioners unanimously approved the plan’s mitigated negative declaration and a 6-foot-high, solid fence topped with a 2-foot-high lattice along the northern property line. They approved the design with several amendments, including that the proposed clock tower be replaced with a decorative water tower or omitted altogether and that Pinewood think beyond asphalt for the meandering curbside path that planners and residents agreed is in keeping with the semirural character of Costello Acres.
At neighbors’ request, Pinewood withdrew its proposal for a camp school at 450 Covington Road to house the school during construction. The property at 450 Covington was already approved for subdivision into two lots when Pinewood bought it last year and demolished the house on it. Pinewood’s directors are pursuing the subdivision and will most likely sell the property, President Scott Riches said.
Riches said a temporary off-campus site would allow construction to be completed in one year instead of two, but he has had no success in finding a suitable one. Local school districts have told Riches they do not have the necessary 10 classrooms plus administrative space and playground to spare, he said. Students will be taught in portables on campus until a building is ready for them.
