For the first time in more than two years, the Town Council and
the school board met in the same room, along with their top-level
professional staffs – just to talk.
And most of that talk was about where to put a new school
campus.
Make that two new campuses.
The school board recently received a new Facilities Master Plan,
set to replace the old plan from 1996. In the new plan, growth
estimates are used to suggest that a new school – serving grades
Kindergarten to eight – is needed in five years. Another such
school will likely be needed 10 years from now.
It’s not clear yet how the grades would be configured. A campus
with all nine levels of K-8 would do the most to ease current and
future overcrowding at existing schools.
Each proposed campus would have a capacity of 900 students,
according to the new plan. The state requires a certain land area
for any new school – it’s based on the number of students plus many
other factors. The figure suggested in the plan is 15-18 acres. The
projected cost would be approximately $20 million for land and
construction.
The trustees asked the Town how and where such schools could be
built. The answers came back, but they were layered with
complexities and conditions. Suitable land in Windsor for a K-8
type of school – 15-18 usable acres – is actually quite scarce.
Windsor is adjacent to the county’s airport, and California law
says that a new school cannot be located within a two-mile radius
of any runway.
Senior Planner Rick Jones addressed the March 29 joint session
and suggested that, because of this restriction, land in the
northeast of Windsor or north of Arata Lane might be suitable. Some
parcels in those areas are outside the Town limits and would need
to be annexed, and any given site may not have any utilities or
sufficient roads. In any case, the Town isn’t planning to grow that
fast, Jones said. Only 150 residential housing allocations will be
issued per year, he said, not requiring any annexation.
“It’s more likely the (school) district will need to be
out in front, seeking site acquisition – before development occurs
in that area,” he said, meaning the school district, not the Town,
might have to pay for water, sewer and other utilities to be
extended to a new school site, greatly increasing the costs.
Only four parcels were identified during the meeting, located on
Springfield Court, Vinecrest Road, north of Arata Lane and Shiloh
Road.
The Springfield site, owned by the district and zoned for a
school adjacent to Cali Calmécac Charter School, is not immediately
ready for development. Its use would require a round of
environmental studies first. The Town wants to preserve the many
heritage oaks that grow there, while the school district will need
to find out whether the land was ever used for toxic dumping or if
it has other lingering hazards. But its biggest drawback is its
size – only 3.26 acres, not enough for a capacity of 900
students.
The Vinecrest parcel and land north of Arata are currently in
private hands and would need to be purchased by the district before
development is possible. Vinecrest, 17 acres in area, has some
advantages.
“It’s got water and sewer stubbed to it, it’s in Town,
it’s got streets to it,” said Peter Chamberlin, the Town’s planning
director. “I’m not necessarily recommending it as a site,
but (it’s) big enough and it’s part of the infrastructure.”
But traffic will be the big – and immediate – problem if a
school is built there, he said. “The neighborhood would be
concerned about the traffic.”
The area north of Arata Lane, to the immediate east of Highway
101, is outside the Town limits, but within Windsor’s urban growth
boundary and subject to annexation. It already has utilities that
may be sufficient for a school, according to Chamberlin. But there
is no single parcel there that is large enough. “The
school (district) has to consider multiple acquisitions of
adjoining properties.”
As for Shiloh Road, two school sites have been identified in the
past, one north of Shiloh, the other south. But the first is too
small for a K-8 school and the second, currently undeveloped
private land, is not even in the Windsor school district – it lies
within the boundaries of both the Mark West District and Santa Rosa
High School attendance area. Trustee Cheryl Scholar, who is on a
county committee that advises on such matters, gave details of how
the school district might go about adopting the area. There are a
number of steps and formalities, and nothing is assured. But
“it really makes sense for that piece of property to be in
the Windsor School District – it’s one development, it’s one town.
Identity is a big thing they look at.”
Another problem with the Shiloh area is its proximity to the
airport. Depending on the actual property, it would be within, or
very close to, the two-mile airport zone. If the airport’s Runway
19 is extended to the northeast – one of the current proposals for
airport expansion – the two-mile zone would expand to the east,
further encompassing the Shiloh site.
Councilmember Debora Fudge asked if a smaller land parcel could
be used if the school buildings were two stories high and thus had
a smaller footprint. Superintendent Steve Herrington said it could
be done, but it would be a “laborious, bureaucratic
process to get through.” However, he said that it would be easier
than getting a waiver from airport distancing requirements.
“You’d have to get both at Shiloh,” Rick Massell,
school board president, quickly added, generating a few laughs.
Chamberlin summed it up simply: “There is no ideal
location – everything has constraints.”
Once a site is chosen, it may be necessary to annex the land to
be within city limits, if it’s not already. Then the school
district will need a way to pay for the land and construction of
the buildings – the next big step. That almost certainly means a
bond measure, to be approved by voters. The school board will soon
be applying to the state for $10.5 million in matching funds, in
anticipation of a bond. According to Herrington, $1.5 million in
additional state matching funds is also available for modernization
of existing schools.
Other money is available from the state to replace portable
classrooms, which the district is spending more than $500,000 per
year to lease, with permanent buildings.
And all that is just for the first proposed K-8 school. Then the
whole process would start again for a second school.
“It’s very difficult,” Chamberlin said Monday,
“to acquire a site that large in the town – a big, vacant
site. The longer you wait, the more difficult it gets. Land gets
more expensive, and more property gets developed. And no matter
where (the schools are located), you’ve got this traffic-jam
problem, because kids don’t walk and they don’t ride the
buses.”