Neighbors Rejecting Olive Branch Over Plan to Raze School : 180 Apartments Proposed on Land Used for Classes From 1876 to 1984

Residents near historic Olive Elementary School want to stop plans by the Orange Unified School District to tear down the school, one of the oldest in the county, and replace it with an apartment complex.

The school, first opened in 1876 but rebuilt over the years, has not been used for five years because of declining enrollment. At a community picnic to commemorate the last day of classes there in June, 1984, district officials promised neighbors in the Olive district that the building would not be torn down.

A few weeks ago, however, neighbors of the site on Magnolia Avenue near Bixby Avenue in the north tip of the city were surprised to learn that the district is well along in plans to tear down the buildings and convert the land into income-producing apartments.

“The residents of this area are up in arms,” said Dorothy Gibson, who is helping to organize the effort to stop development.

Terry Kay, another resident of the Olive district, said neighbors first learned of the plans through a letter they received in April from a company called Newport Resource Management, which had apparently been hired by the district to discuss the proposed project with neighbors one by one.

“They showed us a fancy layout, with about 180 apartments,” Kay said. “It was a professionally done layout. That kind of raised our hackles. We started organizing.

“People feel pretty strongly about this. There’s nobody here at all who thinks putting those apartments here is a good idea.”

Residents plan to meet tonight at the school to begin a petition drive seeking to block the zoning change that would be needed to build the apartments.

Kay and the other opponents said the district provided little public notice about the intent to change the property’s use.

But district officials said they provided ample public notice and discussed the best use for the land at many open meetings.

“It’s a dollars-and-cents thing,” said John Perry, assistant superintendent for business services. “What the school board is saying is that the findings they have show that the district really does need some revenue off that site.”

Orange Unified, which has long complained that it receives less money from the state per student than many surrounding districts, has also faced declining enrollment at many schools. In the mid-1980s, declining enrollment forced the district to close two other schools besides Olive. One of those, Katella Elementary, may reopen soon, but Perry said demographic studies indicate that there will not be a need for more classroom space near the Olive site for a long time.

The Jubilation Bible Fellowship leases the site for $74,000 a year, but district trustees voted last month to cancel the lease because “the district has plans to develop the Olive School site from its present use to one of several alternative uses,” the agenda item read. “All of the alternative uses would include the demolition of the current site.”

Jack Sappington, administrator in charge of special projects for the district, and Perry both said the land would generate much more income with apartments than it would with continued rental of the school buildings, and the school district would retain control of the property.

District officials are exploring a plan in which a developer would lease the land and build apartments.

“We’re getting less than $75,000 now, but we could probably expect to generate as much as $700,000 a year off a formal lease,” Perry said. “Our purpose is to put that money back into the schools to modernize them.”

Neighbors Retain Voice

Perry said neighbors should be glad that the district wants to continue owning the land because that gives them a voice in the quality of the project built there.

“We can assure the community that the project will be in the best interest of the area, to make sure it’s not a slumlord project,” he said. “Also, that it’s a pride to the neighborhood.”

Jack McKee, acting director of the Community Development Department, said the district’s tentative plans call for about 150 apartments, or 18 units per acre.

Perry said part of the property would be developed into a children’s cultural center and a day-care facility.

Neighbors, however, said they feel betrayed and pointed to a 1984 report by a school district panel advising that building homes on the property would be an “unacceptable use.”

Perry said he is not familiar with that report. But, he said, “probably in 1984 we hadn’t identified that need (for more revenue). Now we have a crying need for that.”

Sappington Was Heard

Residents organized a meeting two weeks ago to hear from Sappington about the district’s plans. There was standing room only, said Wayne Gibson, who has written a book about the history of Olive School.

“If there had been tar and feathers there, Sappington might have worn some,” he said. “It could very easily have reached the point of a public debacle.”

Residents also seek a historical designation for the site because although the original buildings are gone, the auditorium was built in the 1930s under the Works Progress Administration.

While Kay and the others said they know that the district needs more money, they said they do not want it to be at their neighborhood’s expense.

“I prefer to think of it as the school board raping and pillaging this area,” Kay said, “so they can go and build something in the eastern section of the district, like in Anaheim Hills.”