The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission decided not to approve Laguna Blanca School‘s request to increase its number of students after hearing resistance from neighbors in Hope Ranch.

The Planning Commission met Wednesday to discuss an application from Laguna Blanca, a private K-12 school with campuses in Hope Ranch and Montecito. The school is looking to increase the cap on its student enrollment from 330 students to 385.

“We believe that an opportunity to grow the school will make our school more sustainable and improve excellence for our students in years ahead,” said Ron Cino, the head of Laguna Blanca, “and hopefully help us survive another 90 years in our beautiful environment within Hope Ranch.”

The school began exploring the possibility of increasing the cap in 2019 and has been working toward it since then.  

Opponents of increasing the cap expressed concern about the increase in traffic and the impact on the surrounding neighborhood.

Instead of denying the application outright, commissioners voted to continue the issue to a future meeting and asked Laguna Blanca officials to return with a plan to address any problems that arise. School representatives were asked to return Dec. 4 to share a revised plan.

Bruce McRoy, one of the people opposing the increase, said he supports the school and called it a great addition to the community. However, he said the language in the report was too general and is worried about the result for people who live near the school.

“My concern is that we’re about to adopt, or you’re about to adopt, a CUP amendment that could be in existence for the next 20 years,” McRoy told the board.

He continued by saying neighbors are worried about whether emergency vehicles would be able to get through traffic because of the road’s narrow streets.  

“It’s a nuisance in one sense, but in another sense, if I was having a heart attack it could very well mean the difference between prompt medical attention and much more serious consequences,” McRoy said.

According to county staff, a traffic study done in the area found that the increase in traffic would not have a massive impact on the neighborhood. 

Other residents shared concerns that they would not be able to leave their driveways and told stories of almost being hit by cars while taking a walk.

Despite the traffic study’s findings, most of the attending commissioners expressed concern about the potential effect on the area and a lack of a responsive plan from the school.

Even though representatives from the school said they were considering having an employee direct traffic with a flag, the proposal would only kick in if school enrollment increased above a certain amount.

The school said that even though it is looking to increase enrollment, it will not immediately expand the number of students at its school to the maximum.

Commissioner John Parke from the Third District stated that he wanted to support the plan but said he found himself debating between his emotional and logical responses.

He mentioned that he went down to the school, and after seeing the kids playing, his instinct was to approve the application. However, he said he had to consider the role of the commission.

“We have these processes in place to slow us down and have us dot the i’s and cross the t’s and make sure we’re doing a thorough examination,” Parke said.

He added that he would like to see Laguna Blanca develop a thorough plan to manage the traffic if it becomes an issue.

Commissioner Roy Reed from the Fourth District and C. Michael Cooney from the First District also expressed skepticism toward the application and the traffic study.

Reed called the issue complex and said he would have liked to have seen the school do a better job informing the neighborhood of the change.

Reed said that only 43 out of 3,000 residents were informed about the proposed increase.

Laura Bridley, the vice chair of the committee, strongly supported the plan and said it was not the commission’s job to dive into the “minutia” of the traffic study.

She also said the area is changing and that more students will be coming as more housing is built in the area. During her comments, she referenced a series of housing projects that have been approved and will be built in her district.

“There’s a new future in front of us in terms of having more people in the town …a nd more need for schools, and it’s not coming quickly from the public agencies,” Bridley said. “So, I don’t see this as a problem [by] having Laguna Blanca provide some of that.”

Bridley also said that living near a school means dealing with traffic and that she deals with the same issue near her home.

However, she acknowledged that she did not have the votes to move the application forward.