Planning Commission approves Carpinteria Unified plan for new Aliso School kindergarten building

The Carpinteria City Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve a revision to the Aliso School Master Plan that will replace temporary portable classrooms with a new, elevated kindergarten building and associated site improvements.

Assistant planner Megan Mussoff told the commission the project, submitted by Carpinteria Unified School District, proposes a C-shaped classroom building containing four kindergarten classrooms, attached student restrooms for each classroom, a central elevated courtyard accessed by two ramps, landscape and hardscape improvements and a reconfiguration of the kindergarten parking area to add ADA stalls while removing five net standard stalls. Mussoff said the building footprint is part of a revised Phase 1 of the 2017 master plan and that the campus is 7.79 acres and located adjacent to Franklin Creek near Seventh Street.

The new structure would have a maximum main roof height of 22 feet and architectural cupolas reaching 27 feet, 10 inches, below the 30-foot maximum allowed in the community facility zone. To meet FEMA and local flood-damage-protection requirements the entire classroom floor will be elevated to 15 feet above mean sea level, about 4.5 feet above surrounding grade, Mussoff said. The…