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A tractor shovels dirt on a 10.3-acre site that is set to become a small “thematic” high school, known as Browning High School, bounded by Redondo Avenue, Obispo Avenue and Hill Street. Site preparation is expected to continue through summer, with the entire project to be
completed by September 2016.
Staff Writer
In about two years, a small high school will become Signal Hill’s new neighbor.
The first phase of a $65-million project to build a “thematic” high school on a vacant 10.3-acre site in Long Beach’s 4th Council District near Signal Hill began last month, with site preparation expected to continue through summer, according to school officials.
The project, which is being funded by Measure K bond money, will be completed in roughly two years, with plans for construction crews to start erecting buildings by October and the school to open by September 2016.
Lately, however, plans for the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) to build the new school, which is being called Browning High School, have drawn criticism from some adjacent neighbors and Signal Hill city officials.
At the Signal Hill City Council meeting on July 1, Vice Mayor Larry Forester and Signal Hill Police Chief Michael Langston said the City is working to schedule a meeting with LBUSD Superintendent Christopher Steinhauser to address concerns about the project. However, it appears a date for the meeting has yet to be confirmed.
At a community meeting organized by LBUSD last April, Forester and local residents raised a number of issues, including the potential for traffic impacts at a four-way intersection at Hill Street and Obispo Avenue, close to where students and faculty would be able to park and be picked up and/or dropped off. Student drop-off is expected to be separate from parking.
Another matter addressed during the meeting is a claim that the high school may negatively affect homes near the site. Particularly concerned are some residents of Aubry at Alamitos Ridge, a tract of upscale houses built adjacent to the school property a few years ago. School officials said LBUSD has owned the empty site for about 15 years.
Lance Woods, a real-estate agent and husband of Signal Hill Councilmember Lori Woods, said during the meeting that homeowners in Signal Hill’s hilltop community, which is already overrun with exercise groups and sightseers, are also worried about the potential impacts the school would have on the area.
He said residents fear that students let out of school may wander up Hill Street into the housing community, which has recently experienced incidents of vandalism, including graffiti and property damage, and people trespassing to use residents’ private pools.
In a phone interview with the Signal Tribune this week, Forester said LBUSD filed a mitigated negative declaration with the City of Long Beach for the project. This means that a full environmental-impact report (EIR) was not needed and any negative impacts to surrounding communities could be mitigated.
The main issue, he said, is that LBUSD originally called for a K-8th-grade elementary school that would bring students typically age 5 to 13 but then changed its plans to build a high school with 9th through 12th graders, who are typically 14 to 18 years old.
School officials have said that, in drafting LBUSD’s facilities master plan, it was thought there would be a demand for elementary schools but the school district’s plans shifted once student enrollment dropped because of a “change in demographics.” LBUSD officials made the decision to build a high school at the site instead of a K-8th-grade school in 2006, school officials said.
The new school would be the second of four new, small “thematic” high schools being built using funding from Measure K, a bond measure passed in 2008. McBride High School in east Long Beach opened last year. In order to be admitted, students are required to submit essays and maintain certain grade-point averages.
The new high schools are being designed to reduce the size of large high schools like Wilson High School, which has had a student enrollment in the thousands. The idea is to pull together the “best and greatest students” in the district with a new focus on teaching occupations specific to the Long Beach area, according to school officials.
LBUSD officials acknowledge that an elementary school at the vacant site near Signal Hill would have required 1,440 students while the new high school is set to have a maximum of only 840 students.
Still, Forester insists that a full EIR be done on the project since, he said, the school district hasn’t taken into account the impact that the student-demographic change may have on the community. Forester called LBUSD’s disclosure on the project “iffy.”
“My concern and the concern of many people in the area, especially in Aubry, is you now have a high-school population [that is] driving,” Forester told the Signal Tribune this week. “You now have a whole different demographic! We can find nothing in [LBUSD’s] mitigated negative declaration that alleviates that problem.”
Another anticipated impact, Forester said, is that the bus stop across from the school site would likely have “a huge volume for passengers” once the new school opens. He added that businesses along Redondo Avenue, including a pet store and Rossmoor Pastries, also have concerns.
Still, claims that the new high school would attract “gang members” from north Long Beach and that the school would be considered a “vocational school” are false, said Vivien Hao, Measure K project-communications coordinator for LBUSD, in a phone interview. Forester agrees with Hao on this issue.
Hao said that the new high school would likely make property values increase, not decrease, adding that the school is set to enroll a “high caliber” of students. This has already been the case for McBride, which, after opening last year, has had to turn hundreds of students away and is now being called a “nerd” school, she said.
Residents near McBride originally raised concerns similar to those from residents near the proposed Browning High School, but such assertions are unwarranted, Hao said, adding that there is no such thing as a public vocational school in California.
“There is misinformation about what type of students who will be going there,” Hao said. “In all cases, our students are held to a high standard.”
As for the project’s environmental-impact review process, Hao said LBUSD had planned a high school about three years ago and received approval from required state agencies, adding that nothing has changed since then.
“I think you’ll find that the plan is well thought out,” she said. “I’m not sure what the problem is that people have with the design. We’ve already considered the various issues that might be surrounding this.”
A spokesperson for the 4th Council District office said no residents in the district have brought up any issues regarding the proposed Browning High School yet but added that LBUSD has yet to reach out to the Council office and its residents about the project.
Hao said she couldn’t immediately confirm if and when LBUSD Superintendent Steinhauser is planning to meet with Signal Hill city officials.
Regarding site preparation, which mainly includes soil remediation because of an abandoned oil well and pipeline, Hao said LBUSD has hired an on-site project-management firm to address residents’ concerns during work hours. She said construction crews are required to abide by Long Beach city ordinances and are mandated to a specific route that does not go through neighborhoods.
Trucks and heavy equipment are expected to haul dirt and materials between the hours of 7am and 7pm Mondays through Fridays and between 9am and 6pm on Saturdays, with no work being done on Sundays.
