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North Fair Oaks residents opposed to a potential expansion of the Synapse School implored San Mateo County during a public meeting on Thursday, May 14, to honor a recent community vote recommending that the project not move forward because of traffic, parking and other concerns.
At the same time, Synapse families that showed up – many of whom indicated they also live in North Fair Oaks – backed their school, saying it provides quality education and is a community asset.
The differing views emerged during a packed special meeting of the North Fair Oaks Community Council, continuing a monthslong contentious debate over Synapse’s proposal to expand with a second campus at the SportsHouse recreational center at 3151 Edison Way.
The meeting – attended by more than 100 people, not counting those participating online – was called to present additional measures to address residents’ concerns and to take further community feedback following the council’s 4-2 vote in February to deny Synapse’s application for a permit to grow.
The council’s decision is advisory, with the county having final say since the project is in unincorporated territory in the area of Menlo Park, Redwood City and Atherton.
Synapse, a private K-8 school operating at 3375 Edison, eyes the eastern portion of the SportsHouse nearby for another campus. The project would convert 9,260 square feet of interior space into six classrooms to accommodate up to 140 students and 15 staff members.
“We’re here because we want to have another opportunity to directly hear from all of you,” Deputy County Executive Nicholas Calderon said, addressing the council and audience at the meeting. “We can take that information; we can process that; and we can take the next step accordingly.”
Steve Monowitz, director of the county Planning and Building Department, noted that since the February vote, “we have been working with the applicant to see if there are additional measures … to try to address the impact (the project is) having on the surrounding community.”
Those measures include limiting tournaments or league competition at the SportsHouse to 30 days a year, not having birthday parties and other activities during those long competitive events and seeking parking agreements with nearby businesses, a county staff report said.
Among the mitigation strategies initially proposed are hiring personnel to patrol and direct onsite parking, requiring employees and guests to park at the SportsHouse and Synapse lots, and expanding a school shuttle program, the report said.
Otherwise, the report said, the Synapse project meets zoning regulations, is consistent with what’s allowed in commercial mixed-use areas and complies with a traffic-related condition to operate outside SportsHouse hours.
But residents from the largely working-class, predominantly Latino community remain unconvinced. They are still wary that the project would only worsen traffic, parking and other issues in their already congested, space-confined pocket of the county filled with a mix of older homes and commercial and industrial enterprises.
“Neither council members nor the residents should be here again tonight as this council already voted to reject this expansion project,” Ever Rodriguez, president of the neighborhood advocacy group North Fair Oaks Community Alliance, said at the podium during the meeting. The project “will only exacerbate our problems by bringing excessive traffic, more parking problems, endangering pedestrians and people riding bicycles, and generating much more pollution by cars idling.”
Giving his thoughts at the meeting, North Fair Oaks resident Agustin Espino described his community as “in pain because there is so much traffic around. It’s just frustrating.”
Espino also argued that Synapse, with an annual tuition exceeding $40,000, has become “so successful that they need to move somewhere else,” where the school can continue to grow and where families can afford to send their children.
“I cannot afford to take my kids over there,” he said.
But Stephanie Beasley, a North Fair Oaks resident whose daughter graduated from Synapse last year, praised the school.
“I cannot say enough good things about this school,” Beasley said. Her daughter “went from being a dyslexic kindergartener to reading beautifully and getting straight A’s in high school right now. And that was because of Synapse, the amazing teachers and the amazing community.”
She agreed the traffic issues need to be worked on, but said, “You will never have a better neighbor than Synapse or SportsHouse. They want to work with the community.”
Synapse Head of School Jim Eagen echoed those sentiments.
“We understand and really actually agree that there are issues in the neighborhood,” Eagen said before the council and the meeting audience. “We’re part of the neighborhood. … I would be open to anything that helps mitigate the situation that doesn’t impact our ability to be a school and for me to pay my teachers and pay the rent.”
Council Chair Juan Carlos Prado told those in attendance at the meeting that he and his colleagues are not against Synapse or SportsHouse despite their rejection of the school’s proposal.
“We’re just trying to work out the (traffic and parking) logistics here of the residents,” Prado said. “We’re trying to see (why) this is a recurring problem and an increasing problem. … We need to just reach a plan that works for everybody.”
After the meeting, which ended earlier than expected due to a false alarm, Prado told the Pulse that it was still essential to gather additional community feedback, though the council had already taken up the matter in February.
“Public input is very, very important,” he said, adding that the concern or criticism expressed is “nothing personal against the school or the SportsHouse because both are very important – one being recreation and one being an educational institution. Our concern is just the logistics of traffic that’s (happening) as they continue to grow.”
The county is expected to review Thursday’s public testimony, but when a final disposition could come was not immediately clear.
