TENTATIVE PACT ON SCHOOL 'FINE-TUNING' NEEDED ON DEVELOPER-BUILT FACILITY.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Capping negotiations stretching back more than three years, Westside Union School District and the developer of the Anaverde master-planned community have reached a tentative agreement for the Antelope Valley's first developer-built school.

The lack of an agreement for an elementary school in the 5,000-home development in southwest Palmdale is forcing Westside to bus youngsters some six miles to a temporary campus leased from the Palmdale School District.

``We've been in negotiations over three years. It was just a matter of us all coming together and having an agreement that works for them and for us,'' trustee Gwen Farrell said.

The board was set to ratify the agreement at a special meeting Thursday night but postponed taking action, saying it needed more ``fine-tuning.''

``We believe in the concept of the contract they are working on. We want to make sure it's right and so do they,'' Farrell said. ``It needs some fine-tuning and needs more support material.''

The board will consider the proposal again at the Nov. 15 meeting.

Nearly 400 homes have been built in Anaverde as part of the first phase of 1,472 homes. About 140 students attend the temporary Anaverde Hills campus, which is on the former Palmdale Learning Plaza campus in west Palmdale.

The tentative agreement with Anaverde LLC, a partnership between Empire Cos. and KB Home, calls for the developer to build a 750-student school that the district hopes will be ready to open in August 2007, Superintendent Regina Rossall said.

Rossall said the school will cost about $20 million and will be paid for with state matching funds and money that Anaverde's builders have been paying into a special account so they could get permission to build homes while negotiations continued on building a school.

There is more than $10 million in the special escrow account, Rossall said. Under an escrow agreement reached in December 2004, for the first 500 homes in Phase One, builders paid $3.54 per square foot for houses they sought building permits for, ranging in size from 1,800 square feet to 3,700 square feet.

The $3.54 rate, which amounted to $6,300 to $13,000 per house, was more than twice Westside's standard developer fee at the time of $1.66 a square foot.

For any homes the builders sought to build past the 500th home, the fee jumped to $10,442 per house.

``It will be a developer-built school with utilization of funds from Anaverde and partial state money,'' said Jon Curtis, executive vice president and general counsel with Empire Cos. ``Anaverde and the school district will be working very closely together to have a very successful school.''

Thomas DiPrima, KB Home's Los Angeles Ventura division president, praised the cooperation of Westside and its leadership in reaching an agreement.

``We really believe it's important to invest in the future of children. The heart of a community lies within its schools. That's why it was important for us to make sure that it got done,'' DiPrima said.

DiPrima said the developer also will contribute furniture and equipment to the new school and will immediately arrange for funds to acquire computers for the temporary school site.

The tentative agreement calls for Westside to purchase from the developer a 10-acre site for an appraised value anticipated to be about $3 million, Rossall said.

The land will be acquired using state matching funds and district money, Rossall said.

Infrastructure for the school site will be developed as part of phase two of the development. The developer will lease the land back from the district, build the school and turn it over to the district, Rossall said.

The buying and leasing of the land ``has to to do with maximizing state funding,'' Rossall said.

The proposed agreement also calls for the Anaverde developer to pay for 27 percent of the cost of acquiring land and constructing a middle school in the Ritter Ranch housing project, Rossall said.

The permanent Anaverde Hills campus will duplicate the design of Westside's Esperanza School and will initially be a K-8 school, depending on what happens in the Ritter Ranch development, Rossall said.

There will be no gym, but the school will have a multipurpose room with interior bleachers that can be used for sports activities, Rossall said.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com