The Abridged version:
- A Rocklin Montessori school and a parent group has filed a complaint against the city and City Council, alleging that they failed to properly assess environmental impacts and property claims when approving plans for an affordable housing development.
- Plans for the 120-unit Sierra Wilds housing complex have drawn backlash from school community members, who say that its overlap with school facilities and a potential exodus of air quality-concerned families could force the public charter school to close.
- The petition asks Placer County courts to order the city to halt the project and declare that the school has rights to disputed property.
A Rocklin charter school and parent group has sued the city and City Council, attempting to stop a controversial affordable housing development that overlaps with school grounds.
Maria Montessori Charter Academy and the Urban Ethics Coalition, a nonprofit formed in opposition to the Sierra Wilds housing development, filed a complaint against Rocklin in Placer County courts on Thursday. The complaint alleges that the city and developers made several missteps before City Council moved forward with development plans, including relying on faulty environmental impact assessments and ignoring the school’s existing property rights.
When the City Council approved a design review and California Environmental Quality Act exemption for Sierra Wilds in September, Maria Montessori community members told Abridged by PBS KVIE that the development puts the future of the school at risk. Now, they hope that their lawsuit will halt it from moving forward.
“We want to continue to keep our school site legal in a healthy and safe environment for our students,” Maria Montessori principal Brent Boothby said after the complaint was filed. “It shouldn’t have been so hard for all the decision-makers involved to do their own homework and do the right thing.”
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The lawsuit comes days after the Rocklin City Council voted to promote the development of more low-income units in the city.
Though the city of Rocklin and City Council are listed as the only respondents in the complaint, other parties are also named as defendants, including the Pacific West Communities development company and a nearby church involved in the land sale.
The Rocklin city manager’s office, the church and a representative for Pacific West Communities have not yet responded to requests for comment.
Why the lawsuit?
In its petition, Maria Montessori and the Urban Ethics Coalition say that the city failed to do its due diligence in granting developers a CEQA exemption, claiming the project fails to meet the requirements for one.
To qualify for a CEQA exemption, developers must provide a prior certified environmental impact review demonstrating that the project will not significantly harm the environment and local community’s health, especially for “sensitive receptors” like children.
Those opposed to Sierra Wilds have argued that the environmental review submitted by developers is outdated and invalid. They say the review used terrain vastly different from that of the Rocklin parcel, and that existing site-specific air quality and land models demonstrate that the review underestimates children’s cancer risks.
“City staff and the Council knew we presented data that warranted an independent study. Instead, they let pressure from state housing regulators dictate their vote rather than protecting local children,” Maria Montessori parent and Urban Ethics Coalition member Brandi Armstrong said in a statement.
Developers stand by report
In the petition, Maria Montessori community members also say that the existing report’s analysis of construction noise and vibration impacts uses inaccurate measurements of the development’s proximity to the school.
Developers previously told Abridged that they stand by the report. Though the land surveyed was not part of the specific project site, they argued, its conditions are similar enough to those of the parcel.
The lawsuit says that St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church, which sold the land to developers, recently asked the school to demolish its blacktop playground and utilities buildings, which would require the school to close for months. Since many parents have said they would pull their children out of school due to air quality and health concerns, administrators are worried that a large-scale loss of students, utilities access and disruptions to school entry points will result in the public charter school closing.
The petition also argues that the design review plan approved by the city permitted developers to change school facilities, which City Council previously said it had no power to do. The school and the Urban Ethics Coalition say that the church and developers violated state guidelines by pursuing changes to school facilities and ingress and egress points without permission from the state, as Maria Montessori is a public school.
“If the development happens as currently proposed, it literally makes our school site illegal,” Boothby said, referring to road access changes that he believes would make it difficult for large vehicles to reach the school’s interior.
A large chunk of the claims made in the lawsuit deal with disputed property boundaries between the school and church. The parcel of land that St. Augustine sold to Pacific West Communities includes the school’s community garden classroom, utilities infrastructure facilities, storage, a hammerhead, and parts of the preschoolers’ blacktop playground, all of which would be put in jeopardy if housing development proceeds.
“They’re demanding we tear up the entire blacktop on the school’s grounds,” Maria Montessori’s lawyer Dan King said. “I can’t tell my next door neighbor to tear up their sewer line because I don’t like it. That’s not how it works.”
‘Someone has to stand up for our kids’
In the filing, Maria Montessori provided records of multiple property agreements between the school and church, including easement and sale agreements drawn up two decades ago.
Developers purchased the parcel because it scored highly on the state’s tax credit system for affordable housing proposals, Pacific West representative Lauren Alexander told Abridged last month. The parcel boundaries included did not identify any portions as claimed by the school or other parties, but in its filing, the school argues that the developer knew about these claims when they bought the land.
Maria Montessori administrators said that the school and Urban Ethics Coalition have three central goals in the petition for declaratory relief: to stop the project, for the courts to rule that they have rights to the disputed property and for the developer to get permission from state agencies to pursue the project in its current form.
“That’s why we’re filing this lawsuit, because the city folded, and someone has to stand up for our kids,” Armstrong said.
