Developing Closed School Site May Be Problematic for Surrounding Area

I’d like to comment on your article in the Sunday Times on the uses of closed school sites (“Closed Schools’ Sites Becoming Battlegrounds,” March 22). I don’t think that you are really doing justice to the people in this area who are opposing development of the Wintersburg High School land.

The original plan was for about 300 apartments and a mini-mall on the corner of Golden West Street and Warner Avenue. The mini-mall was dropped and the final proposal called for 296 condominiums.

The problem is that there is no possible way for this neighborhood to absorb this. For this number of units, the developer would have to set aside one parking place for each one-bedroom unit and 1 1/2 for each two-bedroom unit. Assuming a 40/60 mix, this would be about 375 parking places. For the kind of upscale condos they want to build, this is probably places for about half the cars people would want to park. This assumes no two-car families in one-bedroom units, and no recreational vehicles, trailers, motorcycles, etc.

Where would these be parked? There’s no parking on Warner. The city engineer has already stated that he intends to remove parking along Golden West, breaking a promise he made to the Planning Commission when the city got approval to widen Golden West down to the ocean. That leaves one side street that, if all the people living on that street were restricted to their driveway, would still only add about 50 parking places.

So, this leaves an overflow of between 100 and 300 cars that would be a continuing problem. In fact, it would probably start the destruction of the neighborhood and make it easy for other developers to come in and convert the entire neighborhood to apartments for much less than it would cost otherwise.

I like living here. I don’t want to see this area full of apartments. I would be willing to see the Wintersburg site developed if it can be done without impacting the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is possible.

SCOTT PETERSON, Huntington Beach