Threatened 32% Increase in Hillbrook Enrollment Worries Los Gatos Neighborhood

Guest article by Barbara Dodson, resident of Marchmont Drive in Los Gatos

People in the neighborhood around Hillbrook School are worried.  And with good reason. Hillbrook, a private school at the end of Marchmont Drive, will be asking the Town to allow an almost 32% increase in its enrollment—from 315 to 414 students. Most of the increase would occur in the middle school.

Hillbrook has created traffic problems in the neighborhood for years. Local streets, which include upper and lower Marchmont,  Hilow, Topping, Cardinal, Robin, Stonybrook, Englewood, Shannon, and Kennedy, already face serious traffic problems, a large number of them generated by Hillbrook. And traffic is worst just when everyone is going to school—Hillbrook children heading to and from Hillbrook and neighborhood children walking and biking to and from Blossom Hill Elementary, Van Meter Elementary, and Fisher Middle School.  Add to this the fact that none of the streets have sidewalks or bike lanes and some have blind curves and you have a recipe for disaster.

We are very concerned about the safety of our children. Hillbrook has no response to this, and what response could they have? Over the years, we have asked for reductions in traffic. Hillbrook’s answer is this increase.

Hillbrook’s planned expansion is part of a five-year strategic plan, which has been approached as if the school exists in a vacuum and can do anything it wants. In fact, the school is tucked into a residential community with only one access road in and out. The only way for parents to take their children to Hillbrook is through our completely residential neighborhood with streets all flowing into this single access road. There is no access from the main streets of Kennedy and Shannon. The lack of access provides an obvious limit to growth.

Hillbrook claims it needs to expand so it can offer more sports programs and other activities. But there are innumerable opportunities for Hillbrook students to play almost any sport you can imagine. Hillbrook students have done this for decades, and thrived.

Here are some additional thoughts on this issue:

·     The Hillbrook expansion has no benefits for the town. Hillbrook is a nonprofit, and, thus , pays no taxes. There is no upside for Los Gatos residents. All we get is traffic, noise, pollution, and dangerous conditions for our children.

·  Hillbrook enlarged its facilities under a 2001 Conditional Use Permit (CUP). In 2001, neighbors worried the school was seeking to enlarging the campus so that it could have more students. Time after time, the Head of School insisted that the school had never asked for an increase beyond 315 students. Permission to increase facilities was contingent on no enrollment increase. Hillbrook’s current actions amount to a breach of faith.

·  Hillbrook is proposing most of its growth for its middle school. An increase at the middle school level will bring not only an increase in the number of cars dropping off and picking up children. It will also create more traffic with after-school and evening events.

·  Hillbrook continually indicates that it encourages carpooling, and we can see some carpooling. However, this has not solved the problem in the past. There is no reason to expect it will solve the problem in the future.

·  Most of Hillbrook’s students do not live in Los Gatos. Cars come from out of town, adding to the town’s overall traffic problems.

·  Hillbrook has frequently violated the current CUP. For example, last summer Hillbrook allowed a private camp to use its facilities. The head of school said that at least 900 children were enrolled in summer programs. Under the CUP, Hillbrook is not allowed to rent or lease its facilities, nor can it have more than 315 children on site. Given this and other violations, there is no reason to trust that Hillbrook will adhere to a new CUP.

RE: Threatened 32% Increase in Hillbrook Enrollment Worries Los Gatos Neighborhood

Hillbrook school is a private organization that pays no taxes to Los Gatos. The school has 315 students, and charges $26,000 per year tuition per student. The school is surrounded by residential neighborhoods, and can only be accessed by driving through a mile of local Los Gatos neighborhoods via either Shannon or Kennedy roads.

Now the school wants to increase enrollment by 100. It's understandable why they would want to do this, they will get another $2,600,000 a year in revenue, and have to pay no taxes to the town of Los Gatos.

What do the hundreds of residents, through whose neighborhood the wealthy parents of Hillbrook students zip through every morning and afternoon, get in return? Nothing but another hundred cars zooming through their neighborhood twice a day during two short windows of time.

Why on earth would a rational Los Gatos planning commission approve that expansion, which makes a wealthy school richer while negatively impacting the local neighorhood?

RE: Threatened 32% Increase in Hillbrook Enrollment Worries Los Gatos Neighborhood

If Hillbrook was not in existence and was trying to open a new school, there is NO WAY they'd be allowed to open at their current address.

  They are located at the end of a winding, hilly, 2-lane neighborhood road with no other entry/exit except a single emergency gate.  Students are transported in and out of the school through this single access.  All support vehicles such as food and maintenance providers also use this very same road.

In case of an emergency, such as a fire, emergency vehicles could very easily be tied up trying to get into the school, even with the single emergency gate.  Parts of the campus are very difficult if not impossible to reach using just the emergency gate.

The school has had a maximum enrollment of 315 for their entire existence.  Previous administrations have vowed never to ask for an increased enrollment. They realized the limitiation placed on expansion. 

The current administration is trying to run roughshod over their conditonal use permit that limits student enrollment to 315 and places restrictions on traffic.  They have already shown their wiliingness to do so this past summer when they violated their  permit by accepting payment from a 3rd party to use their facilities as a summer camp.  Their permit prohibits rent or lease of their campus to a 3rd party. 

It appears that the current administration is primarily interested in increased profit with little or no regard for the impact on the neighborhood, the town of Los Gatos in general,  and the safety of their own students.