Alverno Neighbors Question School’s “Compatibility” with Residential Area
By Sameea Kamal
Published: Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Some neighbors recall the early days of Alverno High School as a convent, where the sound of nuns singing would reverberate through the neighborhood.
Today, the sounds are not quite as harmonious to nearby residents, and their negotiations with the school’s administration is continuing to attempt to address the noise and traffic issues caused by the school’s renting our of its facilities for events, among other concerns.
Residents affected by the school’s facility rentals say the current administration has not adequately considered their needs and made the necessary changes to ensure their quality of life.
“While neighbors know that every school needs to have fund raising events, the use of the Villa has become excessive to the detriment of the neighborhood,” said Carolyn Simon, one of the residents who lives across from the eastern border of the private Catholic school for girls.
The current negotiations came about when the school applied to the city for a conditional use permit to legitimize their fundraising activities. Neighbors felt little had changed even after years of complaints to the school and a lawsuit filed by a Pasadena resident who won her case.
“It’s essentially a wedding and event catering business which is not compatible with a residential neighborhood,” she said.
“The conditional use permit was for a day school, an academy with specific rules … like the gate must be locked after school hours.”
The neighbors have hired a lawyer per request by the city to try and negotiate a situation that suits both parties.
According to Simon, noise from events and accompanying traffic is worse at the lower end of the hill where the main driveways are, but permeates uphill as well as a few blocks away from the campus.
“The school has tried to appease neighbors, they have said they want to be good neighbors, but nothing has changed as far as that,” Simon said. “It seems like Alverno’s recent goal was to marginalize it and make it see like only a few people had a problem, yet it is a big problem to many.”
However, because people have been complaining for so long without seeing results, they stop calling, she said.
Some neighbors said that while they enjoy being near the school and having the kids around, they fear that the expansion in the school’s master plan will lead to more congestion.
“Ultimately the cumulative effect is sacrificing the quality of life and property value,” Simon said. “Quality of life, to me, is a large issue. We want a balance.”
Stephen Berentsen, a Sierra Madre resident who lives a block away from the school, said that while evening school events such as PTA meetings are not a problem, larger events have resulted in property damages to cars and things left in nearby driveways such as condoms, beer cans and cigarette butts.
“It’s not a one time thing,” he said.
Alcohol has also been a concern, including sightings of underage drinking after school hours and a lack of regulation on hard liquor at events, Berentsen said.
The school’s usage has also affected property values and has made selling homes difficult, neighbors report.
“We moved across the street from a school, so in a way it’s our own fault,” said one neighbor, who wishes to remain anonymous. “But it feels like (the school administration) is not listening.”
Berensten said that when he tried to sell his home last year, a buyer in escrow dropped out immediately after reviewing the school’s master plan, which the realtor recommended before buying the house.
“No one wants to live near that,” he said.
According to Andrew Cooper, general manager of Century 21 Golden Reality in Pasadena, sellers must disclose in writing any possible defects including neighborhood nuisances when selling their home, but that buyers near schools should be prepared for the environment.
“I think if someone’s moving close to a school they should expect to experience a reasonable amount of noise in the normal hours, nothing excessive,” he said.
Neighbors also say that despite the current complaints, the school has not stopped booking events.
“One resident is only allowed three yard sales a year,” Simon said. “This is fundraising gone amuck. No school should do fundraising every weekend.”
Currently Alverno is offering neighbors one “quiet” weekend a month which would prohibit private events. Neighbors say this is not enough because city and school events may still take place on that weekend.
“Imagine being across the street from a neighbor that has a party with 100-200 people every weekend,” she said.
According to Simon, the neighbors would like for the city to reject the permit, or to approve it only with conditions that protect the neighborhood quality of life.
“I support the school completely- the faculty, and the students – but there are so many things we’ve been through as a neighborhood,” she said. “The neighborhood has been meeting for years, we need real changes to the way they fundraise.”
Neighbors also said that while they are unhappy with the school’s business side, they fully support the students’ educations.
“Some neighbors don’t want to put up signs, some of the girls get offended,” Simon said. “We don’t want to put up signs either, but we’re forced to.”
The neighbors would like to see fewer events that end at an earlier time, an Alverno security guard present at private events and alcohol use regulation.
“Make (events) more lucrative- say, we’re only going to do ten a year,” Berentsen suggested. “Instead of five grand charge 10 or 12 grand and have it be more sought after.”
The school has agreed to a series of stipulations that they have been following for some time, said Ann Gillick, head of the school.
“When we started our whole master planning process we had a series of meetings, and then we met with small group of neighbors and came up with (some measures),” she said. “Unfortunately the neighbors were supposed to go back to their constituency groups, but they never followed up.”
Gillick said the school has being doing some of the measures anyway. The school stopped holding events on Fridays, among other agreements, to show good faith.
At the September 22 meeting, the neighbor’s attorney listed mitigation measures that the school has agreed to review. Neighbors say they are waiting to hear feedback on these measures.
“We have no complaints on school events relating to the girls,” Simon said. “We support Alverno School.”
Not all neighbors mind the noise, however. Gina Lovano, who has lived across from the southern side of the school for fifteen years, said that hearing music from the school is “the most beautiful thing.”
Lovano said the school has been a very good neighbor and that she has had the opportunity to meet celebrities like Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and others when the school invited residents to come to film screenings.
“We get a lot of benefits, more than the cost of the noise, so it works out,” she said. “I enjoy it, seeing people having fun and enjoying themselves.”
11 Responses for “Alverno Neighbors Question School’s “Compatibility” with Residential Area”
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I am a student at Alverno, and I think it’s ridiculous that people are complaining about this. To all those people saying to raise tuition instead of renting out the villa: did you know that tuition has been raised about $1000 per year for the past 5 years? Yes, it’s still the cheapest school in the area, but it’s not very easy for many families to be sending their daughters here (including me). Second of all, Alverno does not hold soccer, basketball, or volleyball games here, nor does it hold cross country and track meets on campus. The only athletic games held on campus are softball, and you should be GLAD. We are also the only school that does not have a gym, and the reason for that is the neighbors would complain about construction. You can hear the La Salle football games from the top of the hill, but do you complain about that? Also, making a high school stop holding events on Fridays is ludicrous. Go find someone else to pick on.
I lived in Sierra Madre for 13 years. What a great and beautiful place to live. The only downside to SM is the opposite of what makes it a great place. The small close knit community we all love can be a pain in the ass. Everyone knows each others business. You run into the same people 2 or 3 times a day at different places. The people there ALL feel entitled. They think that SM is a private community. They dont want any change even if it is for the better. SM is overated and overvalued. $650 for a 2 bed 1100 sf bungalow. What a rip. Webb Martin Realtors drove the house prices through the roof. Alverno High School never hurt anyone. I lived very near there. SM people are just bored and it makes them feel important that they are “preserving” their community.
Most of the anti-Alverno lawn signs are gone. Hopefully the crabs have found something else to complain about and will leave Alverno alone. I live in Sierra Madre and can have a loud music party at my house any night of the week, as long as it is quiet by 10PM, so Alverno is not doing anything any SM resident cannot do. I also spoke to one of the activist neighbors while walking my dog and he was stidently anti-religion, so I suspect the Catholic-bashing angle is also at play here.
I am curious to the age of all these complaining residents. Why, because I used to have a senior neighbor who constantly complained about music and noise during football games from the field 1/2 a block away. We lived next door to her and all you could hear was slight drumming and crowds cheering. Now… if this school was just recently being built, I would maybe agree to go up in arms… but for a campus and villa that have been around for over 40 years? give us all a break! Don’t tell me that when you bought that house near the villa, you had no idea there would be noise? Traffic? It’s a school for pete’s sake! There’s always traffic on Michillinda. Are you all complaining about LaSalle too and the strip mall in between the two schools. I say you should all move out if you are so darn bothered. It’s hard enough to get funds to keep a private school open let alone having to worry about lawsuits by absurdly oversensitive and unreasonable people. I think this may all be Catholic-bashing at heart…. May God touch your hearts and cramp your tongues…
It is pretty hard to believe the neighbors arguments. Take a look at zillow.com and see that property values, sales, and homes for sale next to the school are no different than the neighborhood in general. Health impacts from the noise? What is the evidence? This sounds like people trying to control property that they do not own and have no reasonable claim upon. They bought their property knowing it is a school, and the school conducts its weekend events legally. It also sounds like anti-Catholic, anti-private school sour grapes masquerading as civic discussion.
I note that even the neighbor that doesn’t mind hearing the music from the school still admits to hearing crowd noise and music of the events. That verifies what the neighbors have said all along that the events are too big, too noisy and too frequent.
Just because one neighbor doesn’t mind party noise every weekend doesn’t mean the rest of the neighborhood wants to live that way. There is a reason that cities have noise ordinances. Constant noise disturbances are detrimental to people’s health. Alverno’s weekend party events are a noise nuisance and a public health threat. Other schools manage to fund raise without abusing their neighbors so should Alverno.
When neighbors are using ear plugs so that children can get to sleep and cannot sell their homes due to the business activities at a school, there is something seriously wrong. This community, including the parents of Alverno students, need to stand up for the Alverno neighbors and tell Alverno High School to be reasonable.
Let’s put the fundraising that Alverno High School is doing at the expense of its neighbors in perspective. According to the school, $100,000 per year is raised by operating a party event business at the Villa every weekend. That money comes at a cost to the neighborhood. The cost is a complete loss of peace and quite, detrimental health impacts from noise, increased risks from unreasonable amounts of traffic, drunk drivers, etc and lower property values [and in some cases an inability to sell your home at all].
Alverno is using the money for upkeep on the property, scholarships and keeping the tuition low for the entire population of families attending Alverno. According to Ann Gillick in the former SM Weekly article, Alverno’s tuition is half that of similar private schools. A $500 a year tuition bump, would eliminate the need for the event business at the school by making up the $100,000 earned by having events every weekend that are subjecting an entire neighborhood to noise and other problems.
A tuition increase is not unreasonable given Gillick’s assertion. Alverno could also manage the small increase without taxing the lower income students among the student body. Among the Alverno parents receiving tuition breaks at the expense of the neighborhood are lawyers and successful business owners. These successful Alverno parents were spotted at the City Council podium speaking in favor of the Alverno TUP. If such parents paid a modest increase in tuition of $750 a year, then the lower income Alverno families would be spared any increase at all. And, if 100 Alverno parents paid $1000 a year more, then the majority of Alverno parents, the other 57% of the parents of the remaining 130 students would have no tuition increase at all. This is far more reasonable than creating a situation where the neighbors, including some earning far less as teachers and nurses, are asked to subsidize the private school educations of lawyers and other well off parents.
Other school’s manage their fundraising without renting out their facilities and disturbing their neighbors with weekly party events. Why can’t Alverno?
I will tell you one thing… I wouldn’t want to live in a neighborhood that had all those signs outside.
We live directly across from the main entrance to the school. Often, our street parking is filled with overflow parking and twice our car, parked on the street, was broken into. We’re not sure it was school related, but both times was when all the traffic was parked there on Highland. We love having the kids there but are frequently kept awake and otherwise disturbed by the music, traffic and announcers.
My biggest concern, however, is the City itself. If the school’s functions break many conanents of the CUP, why hasn’t the City protected our rights and enforced the CUP? Of course the school will do what it can (whatever it’s allowed to do), I’m quick to get ticketed for having a guest who forgets to notify police if they’re staying overnight, but the school isn’t cited for REAL and DAMAGING breaches in their charter and the covanents of the CUP. It seems we need to take a serious look at who’s in charge of enforcing the safeguards and regulations put in place by well-meaning local authorities years ago! How does this selective enforcement continue unabated?
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Thank you, Sameea for an article presenting a bit of the neighbor’s perspective. The title of the article however is not quite accurate—it is not the school, but rather the full time weekend event business that is incompatible in a residential area. The neighbors are looking for balance and right now the usage of the Villa on campus is excessive as I mentioned. I was surprised that you didn’t include the fact that only two event free weekends took place from August through October out of the possible 14 weekends. This point sums up the whole issue. One quiet weekend per month is insufficient. End of night event traffic exiting before the gates lock at 11pm on a regular basis in a residential neighborhood is not reasonable. Hard alcohol on a school property is unnecessary. Ann Gillick’s quote about the neighbors not following up in the past with their constituency groups is inaccurate. She wasn’t willing to meet in the middle with the neighbors so talks were going no where. I hope the Alverno Board beyond Ann Gillick and the City of Sierra Madre staff will look earnestly at the neighbor’s plight and have realistic and equitable solutions for both Alverno and the neighboring community. Having a good night’s sleep is more important than meeting celebrities.
As far as party’s every weekend, I would hardly call Alverno right across the street. Residents living on MIchillinda and across the street from any school will not be able to receive a high market value on their home. My daughter was married at Alverno years ago. The music had to stop by 9:30 p.m. and we had to be out by 10:00. We had 200 people and there was no “traffic jam”. People got in their cars and left. I think if you wanted peace and quiet you should never have bought your home on a busy street that is a route many people take to get to their homes and a location across the street from a school. I grew up behind a grammer school and we listened to little league games every season. We had race track traffic often where we could not drive a certain route at certain times. Alvero needs that income… would you rather it be sold and bunch of condo’s be built? I say take the good with the bad and get on with life…