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Published on: 2/28/2008
Last Visited: 2/28/2008
Rick Wentz, Heschel West board member in charge of land entitlements, points to the a 72-acre property in unincorporated Los Angeles County, adjacent to Agoura Hills.
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"Arduous is the word," said Heschel West board member Rick Wentz, who is in charge of land entitlements, in describing the drawn-out battle.
Wentz has been involved with the project since before the land was purchased in 1997 for $1.6 million by a group of Heschel West families.Since then, he said, the school has spent more than $2 million on consultants, studies and entitlements.In addition, he and other school representatives have also looked at hundreds of alternative properties over the last eight years, none of them acceptable.
Heschel West was founded in 1994 with 14 kindergarten students.Today, the school serves 199 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade on its crowded temporary campus off Liberty Canyon Road.Its middle school, currently merged with Kadima Hebrew Academy, is housed on Kadima's West Hills campus.
According to Wentz, the school has fully complied with all environmental and zoning requirements, including the legal restrictions of the North Area Plan, which regulates development within much of the unincorporated area of the Santa Monica Mountains.
"All the issues raised by our opposition have all been looked at and addressed and approved by neutral officials charged with the protection of public health and safety," Wentz said.
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However, Wentz said the school is ameliorating the situation in several ways.
First, the school's landscaping, made up of different zones of plants with different burning capacities, will be designed to slow down a fire.
Second, while advance notice is generally given to evacuate in case of fire, the school will contain a "shelter in place," a large concrete area with oxygen and other supplies, where students and staff can wait out the fire if necessary."It's much safer to go to shelter in place than try to evacuate in cars," Wentz said.
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SOS chairMary Wiesbrock is particularly concerned about preserving the wildlife corridor and protecting children from possible underground toxic waste from the nearby Calabasas landfill, even though the site has been exhaustively tested and declared safe, according to Wentz.
"We really would prefer that Heschel find an alternative site," Wiesbrock said, adding that her organization has suggested possible locations.