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March 10, 2000/3 Adar II 5760, Vol. 52, No.27
Neighbors oppose JCC campus plans
CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer
Growing and organized opposition from prospective neighbors is jeopardizing Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix plans to build a community campus in north Scottsdale.
"It's real serious," said Steve Hilton, zoning chairman of the Jewish Community Campus task force. "I would say it's very significant and we shouldn't underestimate the opposition. That being said, we have strong conviction and belief that what we're doing is right, that it won't adversely affect the neighborhood, that it'll be an asset for the neighborhood and that people's home values will actually increase once the campus is built."
"I personally don't know about the property value issue, that's not something I'm terribly concerned with," said Nancy Gillenwater, the leader of the effort to stop the campus from being built on a now-empty 30-acre site at Scottsdale Road and Sweetwater Avenue donated by an anonymous benefactor. The land is valued at $11.5 million.
Gillenwater, 39 and the mother of two children who attend the neighboring Sonoran Sky Elementary School, said her two major concerns are increased traffic along Sweetwater and the dust and pollution that will be caused during the estimated 22 months of construction for the campus.
"This is going to be major commercial excavation, groundwork, it's going to be horrendous," she said. "And to do it directly next to the elementary school is just about unthinkable, in my opinion."
Under current plans, the campus will eventually have a modern community center with a fitness facility, the Jewish community high school, the King David School, ball fields, soccer fields, an amphitheater and a parking lot with more than 600 parking spaces.
The federation is asking Scottsdale for a pair of special-use permits to allow the campus to be built in an area zoned as residential.
Hilton said task force and federation officials went door-to-door to the homes immediately adjacent to the campus site and held two meetings at the school to inform residents about the project and discuss their concerns, which included the size of the buildings, lighting and the possibility that students from the Jewish high school and the public elementary school might intermingle.
"We have a lot of ideas on how we can address their concerns regarding traffic, regarding lighting, regarding the high school-elementary school relationship; and I think that, if people have an open mind, we can alleviate all their concerns, if they're interested," Hilton said.
However, Gillenwater said she and other neighbors were unconvinced after the second meeting, held March 1 at the school, and that federation officials failed to answer their questions.
"(Federation officials) offered to have the neighbors call them individually to discuss their concerns," Gillenwater said. "That was pretty much the same thing they offered to us at the first meeting. So, all that time passed and we didn't move forward."
She said there was a possibility that opposition to the project could end "if we got to the point of talking about cutting down the size of it."
Gillenwater, who said this is the first time she's been involved in this type of a fight, said she doesn't know whether she and her supporters will win, but "if we can get the majority of the neighborhood, I think sure, we've got a shot. ... I'm getting good support from the neighbors, there's certainly not just a handful of us at this point, and I'm going to do everything in my power to get as much information before the (planning) commission and the (city) council as we can."
Hilton also is trying to drum up support from the Valley's Jewish community, especially in Scottsdale.
"I'm very optimistic that if we can marshal our constituents, the 5,000 Jews and families that live in Scottsdale and are going to use this project in addition to the rest of the people living in the northeast Valley and the greater Phoenix Jewish community, I think that the political influence that we have in the city by the fact of the number of voters that we have will carry the day at the end," Hilton said. "The only way we'll be able to get that message across is by getting people ... to show up at the council meeting and the planning and zoning meeting, to write and call and just get the word out."
The Planning and Zoning Commission hearing on the use permits is 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 15, at Scottsdale City Hall, 3939 Civic Center Blvd. The City Council then will consider the application at its April 4 meeting, at which time members could vote to approve or reject the permits or forward the case to allow more time for discussion.
"City of Scottsdale planning staff has given the project an affirmative recommendation that they support the project," Hilton said.
While admitting there was a possibility that anti-Semitism might be behind some of the opposition to the campus, Hilton said, "I don't want to start calling people anti-Semitic at this point in the game. I don't think it would be right."
Jana Isenberg, who lives across the street from the proposed campus site, said the fact the project is Jewish "has nothing to do with it, and I don't want that to be an issue."
"We don't want the traffic congestion and building across from where we live," Isenberg said. "It is too big of a project to be on the corner that they want to set it at."
Gillenwater said she thinks having a Jewish community campus in Scottsdale would be good for the city, as long as it was built somewhere else.
"Yeah, it'll be nice to have one close, because I'd send my kids there," she said. "My children went to the JCC preschool on Maryland. But not on this corner, not with 675 students being dropped off or driving to this campus every day, twice a day."
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