Church school asks city of Turlock to close road that splits campus

Sacred Heart Catholic School students study on one side of Cooper Avenue and play on the other, a decades-long arrangement parents say is unsafe.

The school is asking the city of Turlock to permanently close Cooper Avenue between Oak and Rose streets, officially a request to abandon the roadway. The Turlock Planning Commission will hear the matter Jan. 7, giving its advisory opinion before the Turlock City Council considers the plan and, at a later meeting, rules on the request.

On school days the road is blocked to traffic from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., but pedestrians can still walk through at will. That worries parent Carrie Gosnell, who helped spearhead the school’s application.

“Kids are accessible,” Gosnell said, ticking off times when strangers wandered onto the playground and into the church during a school Mass. She would like to see a permanent fence around the campus and get rid of the road her young children have to cross every lunch period and recess.

“It’s just a different time now, where I think it’s needed,” said Gosnell, who has a kindergartner and a third-grader among the approximately 200 students at the school, on the north side of Cooper, and a younger child at the preschool, serving about 90 little ones, on the south side of Cooper. More children come at night for catechism classes, she said, when the gates are open.

But neighbors do not want to see the road closed, raising concerns of emergency access, taxpayer rights and complaints about church traffic.

“This is the third time we have had to attend one of these meetings when the school wants to close Cooper Street (sic),” wrote Veronica, Charleen and Joanne Schendel in a letter to the Planning Commission.

The agenda item notes it came before the council in 1983 and was denied because of neighbor opposition. In 2001 the city approved the 7-foot cyclone fence and traffic gates now in place around the campus.

The Schendels point out a permanent closure includes months when the school does not operate. “Those who are requesting to close the street are here a short period of time during the school year, and Sundays, the school is closed during the summer. The permanent closure does not affect their daily quality of life but mine,” the letter says.

The writer adds, “It is no picnic living on this street between the school district, stadium and Sacred Heart.”

Cooper is nestled in an older section of town with small lots and large trees lining narrow streets. The Turlock Unified School District office, facing Canal Drive, and Turlock High stadium on Colorado create an eastern border for the neighborhood, with Canal, Minaret Avenue and Marshall Street taking most traffic around it.

Homes and a former school bus facility fill the first block of Cooper. A church residence and more homes line the second. Sacred Heart school and church take up the third block. The final block has Good Shepherd Lutheran Church and, facing Minaret, the Turlock Public Library and Senior Citizens Center.

A second neighbor’s letter to the commission says church functions tie up traffic without notice given to neighbors, and suggests public comment be limited to neighborhood residents.

“I believe that those of us who will be directly impacted on a daily basis by the closing of the street, should be considered the community,” Amy Boylan-Mendes wrote. Her letter includes a list of issues, most directed at a private school being given control of public property.

Both letters cite concerns the closure would delay emergency vehicles. Fire station No. 1, three blocks away on Minaret Avenue, responds to this area.

The city Planning Department has not taken a position on the request. The agenda item notes the city’s general plan support maintaining street grids, including the smaller squares common in older sections of town. Joining the blocks would create a double-wide stretch of 660 feet, equal to or slightly longer than blocks in newer residential areas of Turlock.

“The city engineer has determined that the removal of this single block of roadway from the street network is not likely to negatively impact the flow of vehicles in the area or increase response times for fire or police services,” the agenda report notes, adding pedestrians would be inconvenienced by having to walk around the school.

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 4:33 PM with the headline "Church school asks city of Turlock to close road that splits campus."