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San Francisco Chronicle At first glance, the idea of building a beautifully designed new school or church in the woods or valleys of semirural California sounds like something out of America's idyllic past. Scenes from
Norman Rockwell or Grandma Moses come to mind. But, as a growing number of churches and private or parochial schools in the Bay Area search for property that will allow them to expand, environmentalists and local residents are
lining up to do battle. However spiritual or educational or noble the goals, they say, such development only engenders the evil known as urban sprawl. "There has been a noticeable change over the last few months by these
groups asking that exceptions be made, in a way bending the rules, to allow these urban uses in nonurban areas, and it is increasing," said Autumn Bernstein, South Bay field representative for the Greenbelt Alliance.
"Once you allow big churches and schools in rural areas, where do you draw the line? What about conference centers, large gas stations, convenience stores?" Groups such as the Greenbelt Alliance, the Committee for
Green Foothills and the Sierra Club are battling private school and church proposals in Woodside, Cupertino and San Jose, as well as other parts of the Bay Area. In Alameda County, a plan by Redwood Christian Schools of Castro
Valley to build a junior and senior high school in pristine Palomares Canyon for 650 students was turned down last month by the county's Board of Supervisors after months of debate. The board ruled that the proposed development was
outside the recently voter-approved urban growth boundary. In Marin County, a proposal by the Coptic Orthodox Monastery of St. Anthony to build a monastery and other buildings is being fought by local ranchers and
environmentalists seeking to prevent development along the coastline and preserve historic agricultural uses. In Santa Clara County, Canyon Heights Academy, which emphasizes Roman Catholic tradition in its teachings, wants to
build a new school in the hills above Cupertino for prekindergarten through high school students. Local residents and the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club are fighting that plan. These are new and formidable foes for
environmentalists and residents, who for years have been more accustomed to battling large-scale developments involving housing and corporate buildings. The problem, these foes say, is that churches, seeing their congregations
grow, and private schools, seeking land they can own, are trying to migrate into greenbelts that are often beyond the so-called urban growth line. "These are buildings going into rural and semirural areas where local people
would never choose to have them," said Tom Steinbach, executive director of the Greenbelt Alliance. "They ought to be sited near transportation centers where people actually live." But proponents of schools
counter that where they plan to build can hardly be described as rural and, in fact, the sites are fairly close to main transportation corridors. And, they insist, such schools and churches also serve as valuable local community
resources. One of the most visible schools in the planning stages is Phillips Brooks School, attended by preschool through fifth-grade children of parents willing to pay $14,800 in annual tuition. The school, which now leases
buildings in Menlo Park from the Las Lomitas School District, has ambitious plans to build a low-lying, state-of-the-art school for 290 students on 92 acres in southern Woodside. The move was devised after the school saw its rent
triple in recent months, to more than $800,000 a year, school officials say. The campus, proposed for a beautiful sylvan tract of blue and valley oaks about a mile west of Silicon Valley's powerful venture capital row on Sand
Hill Road, would include several structures and is believed to be the biggest development proposed for Woodside in years. Nine large homes have already been approved for the site. The school would be a better fit, argue school
officials. "The most important fact here is that the town of Woodside is going to have to make a choice between this school and nine large home sites," said Sam Bronfman II, chairman of the board of trustees. "The
property is really perfect for a school and it is a far better alternative for the residents of Woodside and the environment than nine more homes." But environmentalists are fighting the plan. "They will mutilate the
landscape and call it education," said Lennie Roberts, a legislative lobbyist for the influential Committee for Green Foothills. Roberts, who lives in the nearby Ladera subdivision north of Woodside, said the school's
construction will result in the removal of 945 oak trees, most of them rare blue oaks. Even angrier is Jody Lawler. Her husband, real estate developer Roger Lawler, sold the 92-acre plot to a developer in 1989, and it went
through three developers before the last developer subdivided it into nine housing sites. The school bought the land in 1997. Problem is, the Lawlers still live adjacent to the proposed school site. They think it will bring
traffic problems and fire dangers. "If this school goes in," Jody Lawler said, "it will become its own tornado, encouraging more developing on a big scale west of Highway 280, encouraging, in fact, Stanford
University, which is adjacent to this land, to develop further." But Joyce Massaro, a spokeswoman for Phillips Brooks School, said parents and many neighbors insist that a school at that site would benefit all the residents
in the community. "Our play and sports fields will be available to the community and we are setting aside 80 acres with restrictive easements to protect it from further development," she said. "It will be designed
to be all but invisible to those who drive by it on Highway 280." |
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