Politics & Government

PUSD Board Approves Initial Burbank Construction Plan

The first phase of the plan was approved on Tuesday night.

The Pasadena Unified School Board voted on Tuesday night on a plan that would move a PUSD mental health program to the campus of Burbank Elementary this summer.

The move of the program, which is currently at McKinley campus in Pasadena, is the first phase of the updated plan for Burbank Elementary.  The long-term plan calls for several pre-schools and district staff programs to eventually also be moved there.

The district had initially presented a plan that would relocated all the programs and schools there by this September, requiring paving over a grass field to expand the parking area.  That plan was voted down in May after some board members raised concerns that Altadena residents had not been consulted about the plan.

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Under the updated plan, the district would require traffic and environmental studies before bringing in the offices that officials would like to relocate there.

According to PUSD spokeswoman Hilda Ramirez, much of the discussion at Tuesday's night meeting was about the issue of preserving some of the green space that might be converted to parking spaces.  That part of the plan will still need to return back to the board for approval at a later date.

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Under the current plan, the relocation of LAUP, a nonprofit special education preschool currently located at and of the Hodges Children Center preschool program would not be done before winter break of 2011.

And the use that possibly require the grass field to be paved, the relocation of a PUSD staff development program that is currently housed at the Edison campus, would be subject to the traffic analysis and environmental study before being approved.

Updating the plan and breaking it into phases has district officials rethinking the cost of renovation - the entire cost of the project is now estimated at about $650,000, much greater than the $150,000 to $170,00 price tag in the original staff report.  The money will mostly come from Measure TT funds set aside for school improvements, according to district officials.

District officials came up with the revised plan after several public meetings at Burbank where local residents for not including them in the planning process.

Editor's note: The original version of this article mistakenly read that the Pasadena Mental Health Center would be relocated to the Burbank campus.


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