Residents concerned about new residential development in San Carlos

Dear editor,

I read your article in the Mission Times Courier this week regarding the possible closure of Magnolia Science Academy and the purchase of the property by the developer Preface to build homes on the property.

You wrote that John Pilch, who I am unfamiliar with, said residents on Lake Arrowhead Drive have no opposition to new homes being built on the property. That is completely untrue.

I live directly behind the school on Lake Arrowhead Drive. We didn’t know the school was being sold until after it was sold and received a little postcard in the mail from the developer regarding a meet-and-greet at the Rec Center to discuss our concerns.

My husband went and told them he was unhappy about it and that our daughter has asthma and we are concerned about all of the construction that will take place behind our house. They basically said “oh well.”

We have spoken to our other neighbors and they are not happy either.

We would rather see an “undeveloped, unkempt, decomposed granite expanse,” as Pilch put it in your article, than a bunch a single-family homes. We like how it looks when we go out into our backyard.

Do you know how ridiculous these homes will look in this neighborhood? The reason we bought this home is because there were no homes behind us. We now are considering moving and when we will be able to do that. Will the value of our home go down? Can we sell our home when all of this construction is going on?

The dust from the construction will really impact us and our backyard. I just pray that my daughter’s health isn’t made worse.

We are not at all happy about this.

— Kathy Galloway, resident of Lake Arrowhead Drive (via email)

Dear editor,

I grew up in this neighborhood back in the 1960s and ‘70s, and the school was there already. It’s been a part of the neighborhood forever, and I would hate to see it get torn down, either the school itself or the playing field and the school together.

If this company comes in and puts in 50 homes, it’s just going to destroy what’s left of this neighborhood. I’ve talked to people up and down Lake Arrowhead Drive and they’re not looking forward to it. I used to be a paperboy in this neighborhood, so I know a lot of people. They feel more strongly about it than you realize.

I’d rather have a vacant playing field to look over than 50 houses with all kinds of stink and smells and dogs barking and all the crud that gets accumulated in people’s backyards. I’d rather have a wide-open view.

They didn’t give this Magnolia school a chance to round up the funds fast enough. It makes you wonder if money’s talking. If they’re going to put in all these homes it’s going to bring down the quality of the neighborhood.

If they put in 50 more homes it’s just going to make this area overcrowded. There’s already families here doubling up in houses. You’re talking four to six people per house. Lake Arrowhead Drive is already a cut-through for traffic. It’s just going to be hellacious.

I live near Charlotte, North Carolina, now, but I’ve been here a number of weeks now visiting family and friends who still live on this street, and I’ve been hearing all this talk about water shortages. Every night you see on the news we’ve got to save water, save water. Every time you turn around they’re putting in new homes or businesses.

I’m sure the little school here is not going to use the amount of water that 50 new homes are going to use. They’re being hypocrites. They’re not saving water because they’re allowing more building to be done. If they take this little school and convert it into more housing it’s just going to be a bigger water issue.

The city schools should have been paying attention to those things too. Did the city schools just need the money so bad that they were in too big a hurry to pay attention to what they were doing to the neighborhood? Why would you sell a piece of land that’s worth way more than $6 million? The developer is going to get rich and go back to LA and they’re not gonna care about the impact on this neighborhood.

—Randy [last name withheld], former resident of Lake Arrowhead Drive (via telephone) 

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