Glendale’s Planning Commission completely botched its role in deciding whether to extend the conditional use permit to allow Chamlian School to continue operating under its current conditions.
The issue is not how much parents and students love the school, testimony about which the commissioners allowed to take up a major part of the hearing. The issue is whether the school has complied with the conditions that were imposed when the recently expired CUP was granted in 2014.
The clear weight of the evidence is that the school has failed to comply with the conditions. In my letter to the commissioners on behalf of the Crescenta Highlands Neighborhood Association, I urged the commissioners to visit the site during school drop-off and pickup times to see the discourteous, chaotic and dangerous conditions for themselves. If any of them did, they didn’t mention it at the hearing.
In light of the previous conditions’ inadequacy to cure the problems and especially in light of the prelacy’s plans to build a preschool across the street, the proper course would have been to limit the extension of the CUP to a short time such as two years. This would make it clear to the school administration that the traffic problems must be addressed and would allow the commission to assess the additional problems created by the new preschool.
Instead the commission completely disregarded the neighbors’ valid concerns and granted a permanent CUP, something that was not even discussed in the staff report and brought up by the applicant in the course of the hearing. Is it any wonder the neighbors have appealed this decision?
Mary-Lynne Fisher, president
Crescenta Highlands
Neighborhood Association
First published in the June 15 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
