DEVELOPER MAKES DEAL ON SCHOOL; RESIDENTIAL PROJECT TO INCLUDE CAMPUS.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Yet another large-scale residential development is planned for the Santa Clarita Valley, and the bulldozers clearing the land for home construction also will prepare a site for a new school.

Los Angeles-based Pardee Construction Co. will construct an elementary school for the Sulphur Springs School District under an agreement approved last week between the school board and the developer.

The project, called Fair Oaks Ranch, will add 1,850 homes to land near Via Princessa and the Antelope Valley Freeway.

The agreement marks a coup for schools, which more often than not find themselves fighting for money from developers to cover the cost of educating youngsters in new neighborhoods.

``Based on our current (calculations), that development would generate a little over 600 kids,'' said Nick Teeter, assistant superintendent of business services for the school district.

``(Pardee) will provide us with a site and they'll build us a school for 600 kids,'' Teeter said. A 10-acre parcel, on Lost Canyon Road near Via Princessa, has been picked out, he added.

Construction costs for the 20-classroom school likely will run $5.2 million, half of which Pardee could recoup if the state reimburses the district for the new school, said John Osgood, a project manager and assistant vice president for Pardee.

The Sulphur Springs School District, which has seven schools and an enrollment of 4,800, has applied to the state for funding of an eighth campus, Teeter said.

Construction of the 874-acre Fair Oaks Ranch project will proceed in phases, and the school will be built during the first phase, Osgood said. That portion of the tract will cover 243 acres and include 393 houses.

The total project - 1,600 houses and 250 apartments, condos or townhomes - is expected to take 10 years to build, Pardee officials said.

Last month, the William S. Hart Union High School District board approved an agreement in which Pardee will pay $5,600 in fees for every house it builds and $2,100 for each multifamily unit in the project.

If the Hart district later receives some school construction money from the state government, the district will refund part of that sum to the developers.

None of the land will be set aside to build a high school or junior high, chiefly because the property's hilly acreage isn't suitable for it. That type of construction generally requires flat, open land. In addition, the proposed tract will be near La Mesa Junior High School, and Hart district officials said it wouldn't make sense to build a second school for seventh- and eighth-graders so close by.

School districts often face a long wait getting money from the state government to pay for construction of new schools; increasingly they have been requiring developers to pay upfront for the impact their homes will have on the local public school system.

Construction on the Fair Oaks Ranch homes is slated to begin in January, Osgood said. Pardee is the second-largest home builder in the state.

Teeter said elementary schools take about two years to build, between the drawing up of plans by an architect to the securing of permits from the county to the actual construction.

Although Pardee will build the school, it will adhere to state requirements, Teeter said. The developer might be able to do the job at less expense than if the district put the project out to bid and chose another firm, he added.

Three acres of the school's playground space might double as public parkland under the terms of the agreement, Osgood added.

The school likely will open between 2001 and 2003, Teeter added.

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Photo: Work continues along the Antelope Valley Freeway near Via Pri ncessa on a project for 1,850 homes to be built by Pardee Construction Co.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News