GUSD seeks permission to sidestep growth laws in order to pursue
building homes at Las Animas site
Gilroy – School district officials anxious to wring millions of dollars from a defunct school site are reviving controversial plans to fast-track its redevelopment.
In July, officials with the Gilroy Unified School District will ask for city permission to sidestep local growth control laws in pursuit of building 99 homes at the former site of Las Animas Elementary School, in north Gilroy.
The school district backed off the proposal in early May in the face of council opposition. At the time, councilmen said they preferred to see the district go through the same competition for housing allotments that other developers face. The growth control process, governed by the Residential Development Ordinance, doles out housing units based on a 200 point scale.
But school officials reverted to their original plan just days after agreeing to jockey for a share of the 170 permits in this summer’s RDO competition.
“New information has come to light that causes us concern about this course of action,” GUSD’s Assistant Superintendent Steve Brinkman wrote in mid-May to the city.
School district officials learned in recent weeks that the results of the RDO competition, originally expected in November, could stretch several months into the new year. A later announcement date would come uncomfortably close to next summer, when the district expects multimillion-dollar bills to roll in for land purchases and construction of a new elementary school and high school.
“We just can’t take a chance,” Brinkman said. “We really need the cash flow. It would be problematic to wait another year.”
The price tag on land slated for the new high school, for example, has outstripped initial projections by $13 million. Meanwhile, the school district is waiting to learn the millions more it will have to spend on land for the new elementary school.
But it remains unclear if GUSD’s financial plight will convince city leaders to grant yet another zoning exemption. Council members have begrudgingly changed regulations in recent years to benefit a handful of projects, but they balked at GUSD’s attempt to invoke a controversial exemption granted four years ago to Bonfante Gardens. That specially designed section of the zoning code allowed the financially beleaguered nonprofit theme park to skip past the RDO competition and receive 99 housing allotments.
The district’s latest exemption request is a close kin to the one tailored for nonprofit groups such as Bonfante Gardens. It retains the same housing unit cap while tweaking the language to accommodate a school district.
“When it came before us the first time, in terms of how far we were going to go to give special exemptions, we bent over backwards and I voted for it reluctantly,” Councilman Peter Arellano said of the Bonfante exemption. “For me, education is a public good, but are we responsible for helping the school district out of a financial problem? That’s a question I need to deliberate further and discuss with council, because it’s not something I can say right now.”
Planning commissioners will review the exemption request July 26. If approved, city council would take up the matter by September. In the meantime, Brinkman said the school district would continue putting together an application for the summer RDO competition.
“We want to leave our options open because there’s no guarantee that if we go through the competition process we will be awarded the allocations,” Brinkman said. “We’re going to proceed on parallel paths.”
