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Neighbors of the defunct Franklin Elementary School have reached a tentative settlement with the Berkeley Unified School District, clearing the way for BUSD’s plan to shift its Adult School to the Franklin campus this fall. 

The deal, confirmed by BUSD Director of Facilities and Maintenance Lew Jones and Plaintiff Tim Arai, must still be approved by the school board next week. Neither Jones nor Arai would disclose details until the settlement is final. 

Last September Arai and his wife Carrie Adams, with the backing of several neighbors, filed suit against the district telling the Planet that the lawsuit was “a tool to try to get the district to deal with us in a responsible manner.” The suit charged that the district’s environmental plan for the move underestimated the traffic burden posed to neighbors and purposely ignored the second half of the district’s plan—moving the administrative offices to the West Campus site at 1222 University Ave., which currently houses the Adult School. 

The agreement, signed on Friday, just beat a district-imposed deadline. Neighbors said district officials threatened that if a settlement wasn’t reached by March 1st—the date the district needed to issue change orders to contractors—they would rescind concessions they had made on the site plan. 

Since the lawsuit was filed, district officials have met repeatedly with Franklin neighbors independent of the lawsuit proceedings. As concessions, the BUSD agreed to scrap its site plan for the school in favor of an alternative plan favored by the neighbors that allowed for better traffic flow through residential streets and more privacy for neighbors. 

In addition, the district agreed to perform an environmental study on installing lights on the smaller east parking lot, which would allow students to park there at night and not direct all of their headlights at neighbors facing the west parking lot.  

Arai did not seek an injunction against the district to stop construction which began last November. 

BUSD officials have insisted that that moving the 1,200 student adult school to Franklin, which borders San Pablo Avenue between Virginia and Francisco streets, was not part of a grand plan for reshuffling district facilities. They approved the current shakeup, they say, because the Adult School requires major construction work and moving the Adult School during construction, only to move it back later, would cost too much. 

Though the lawsuit is settled, several issues remain unresolved. A plot on the northeast corner of the property remains slated for a public garden, but, despite assurances from some school board members, the district has made no formal commitment to pay for the project or maintain it. Also neighbors along Francisco Street are pushing for some classrooms to have fogged windows to keep students from looking directly into their properties. 

The simultaneous negotiations among lawyers to settle the lawsuit and between district officials and neighbors over specific items in the district’s plans have left some neighbors questioning the value of the lawsuit. “It was unclear why the settlement talks were being held,” said Brad Smith, an aide to Councilmember Linda Maio and member of a neighborhood site committee that negotiated with the school district. “I would have been upset as a neighbor to have advances in the public process scuttled by the suit.” 

James Day, another member of the Site Committee, said negotiations had improved the plan, but he remained uneasy about the move. “This is still a big gamble for the neighborhood,” he said. “Some people want us to be happy, but how do we know until the cars and students come?” ˇ