As Burlingame hoped to alleviate its shortage of space in its
elementary schools caused by rapidly growing enrollment, the San Mateo County
Superior Court Judge Marie Weiner put a halt to this plan and ordered a full
environmental impact report. The plan was to reopen the Hoover Elementary
closed in 1979. The Burlingame Elementary re-purchased the school in 2010 and
planned to open in this year. However, the lawsuit was filed by local residents
who worried about the impact of the school on the traffic. The judge ruled that
the construction of the Hoover Elementary must be halted until the environmental
impact of the school is thoroughly researched. You can read more about the ruling
in the Daily
Journal article of May 9, 2014.
Who is right? School opponents or school supporters? The Hoover
school was originally opened in 1931 and closed in 1979. Did neighborhood
experienced traffic problems then (weren’t cars much larger then, thus taking
more spaceJ)?
How about the benefits for the city or the neighborhood? It happened that the Canyon
Rd area that would be most affected by the school opening is the area where home
prices are lagging in contrast with the remainder of Burlingame where home
prices have dramatically increased during the last two years, well above pre-real
estate crisis levels. Analyzing the data, one could say that home prices in
this area has even stagnated. One might think that the new school could reverse
the trend.
There will be many more losers of the recent decision
independent of the results of environmental studies. The cost renovations and
new equipment of $13 M were supposed to be paid by Measure D, a $56 M bond
measure passed by Burlingame voters in November 2012. It seems that the 2012
voting was a better time to disagree with the project. How much money is going
to be spent for the litigation? And if at the end, the decision will be made to
go ahead and open the school, where will the money to open the school come from?
Will we need another bond to pay for it? Independent on the final decision,
everyone in Burlingame will lose financially (less or more dependent on the length
of the litigation and the final decision). Of course, local residents who filed
the lawsuit used their rights to challenge the project. The Burlingame
Elementary School District failed in its duty to properly research the school
impact on the neighborhood traffic. The District should have responded to neighbors’
concerns about traffic impact and address it in appropriate manner averting a
full environmental investigation and its unknown consequences.
