The Pacific View Elementary School site will be back in the spotlight tomorrow.
The Board of Trustees for the Encinitas Union School District will be meeting at 6:30pm Tuesday to determine what to do with the old school site.
District officials had been exploring options for the property ever since the school closed in 2003 after its enrollment declined. Their latest plan was to hand it over to a private developer for a housing project. In order for that to occur, the city needed to allow the zoning to change from public facilities to “residential-15,” which would allow up to 24 homes on the site. The Encinitas City Council rejected the zoning change last month.
At that City Council meeting, many speakers said that instead of tearing down the old school buildings and putting homes on the land, the Encinitas Union School District and the city should work together to transform the place into a community arts facility or other public use center.
Holding up various property deed documents for the old school site, Leucadia resident Sarah Garfield, who owns property near the school on Third Street, stressed that the school property was donated long ago by several people who hoped children would enjoy it forever.
“These were not only great gifts, they were well-thought-out gifts,” she said, adding that the school site is a unique because of its prime coastal location.
“These people did us a great favor.”
If you’d like to attend, the school district offices are at 101 Rancho Santa Fe Rd.
Prediction: The school district decides to do nothing since the city won’t let them sell it, so the building sits there, falling apart, until a bum burns it down sometime around 2035.
Also, in today’s “Top This” file, we have a case of a house being in foreclosure for 25 years:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703865004575648900250047766.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEADNewsCollection
This property has become a dumping ground for transients & the like. The school district & city need to come together sooner than later. They should retain the services of Dudek who is located directly across the street. The are an environmental & engineering firm that help design, plan, permit, manage, and construct projects involving:
Natural resource management
Infrastructure development
Regulatory compliance
**I have no stake in the property or Dudek**
The site is beautiful and will likely take years to be decided on. The elevation of the property affects many of the decisions to be debated, as it sits high along the bluff. I would love to see it as a light residential. It is a poor location for commercial, and should not be an over developed aboration to the neighborhood.
In the meantime why couldn’t they just level the place, put in some grass and call it a “temporary” park?
In China they’d have a 30 story high rise built (and perhaps fallen) by now on this site…
The school district, in conjunction with the city should plan a neighborhood, get approvals and permits ready to pull, then sell it to developers. They developers would line up for miles for a shovel-ready project and the city would get exactly what they want. However, the district might be surprised how much land value they destroyed by planning a hyper-green low density project that pleases all the vocal residents.
clearfund-The school district wants to do exactly that. The city won’t let them.
Of course, school districts don’t pay property taxes. The cost to them to hold on to the property forever is basically zero. They can wait until the current city council is replaced with a more development-friendly one.
Just like the 40 ac park property, the city said sell to us or we will never approve anything on your site and it will be worthless.
People’s Republic of Encinitas…..unless you are a connected leucadia greenhouse owner who wants to subdivide….