CB7 Beacon School Public Hearing

We attended the meeting tonight.  Based on the people, mostly parents, who spoke, there was near unanimous support for Beacon being re-purposed as a new middle school or a combined middle school / district 3 high school. This is something we can support: the creation of a new school for the district.  Every seat in a new school in the Beacon building will be an additional seat for the district - as opposed to the ECF/DOE proposal for PS 199 and PS 191 which, at best, creates marginally more seats and certainly no new middle school based on the proposal. Moreover, if the DOE moves forward with the demolition of PS 199 and/or PS 191, and Beacon is the space used for the temporary location of a school (which from what we've heard is the most likely outcome), then that decision will delay by years a new middle school for the district.

Big question:  Why is the DOE asking for public input about Beacon and at the same time proposing to demolish PS 191 and/or PS 199, which may require the use of Beacon?

Here is a summary of the meeting from the No to Redevelopment site.

Here the report in DNAinfo.

Could Beacon HS be the Temp Site for P.S. 199 or P.S. 191?

New York Press reports on CB7's Youth, Education and Libraries Committee meeting from last week.

The committee also discussed the Beacon Building Working Group, which was formed in March to deal with future plans for what will be a vacant space when the Beacon School relocates. Beacon High School will be moving from their current location on West 61st Street to a new spot on West 44th Street in the autumn of 2015. Mark Diller, who chairs the Beacon Building Working Group, addressed concerns in the community that the organization would simply serve as a rubber stamp to approve Beacon as an interim space for P.S. 199 (270 W. 70th St.) or P.S. 191 (210 W. 61st St.), both sites that Department Of Education (DOE) has shown interest in reconstructing.

Read the Full Article. 

Amended Community Board 7 Resolution

Below is the wording of the Resolution asking the DOE to engage the community before taking the next step of releasing an RFP.

"THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT Community Board 7/Manhattan calls on the

Department of Education, the School Construction Authority and the Educational Construction Fund to:

1. Prior to the formulation and release of any RFP relating to these sites, work with CB7 to conduct immediate,

consistent and meaningful public outreach to all constituencies in the affected community

and solicit public comment and concerns relating to all phases and aspects of the proposed

redevelopment;

2. Recognize and work with CB7 to establish a structure for regular and on-going discourse between DOE and community stakeholders (parents, teachers, administrators, local residents), agencies (DOE, DOB, City Planning, etc.), and elected City, State, and Federal officials regarding any concepts and/or proposal related to the proposed sites.

3. Provide a written commitment that the key aspects of any redevelopment proposal for these

sites be subject to ULURP."

Letter from Mel Wymore, Candidate for City Council, District 6

The Importance of ULURP (Excuse me)

ULURP is the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.  Here is a short blurb about it:

"Prior to 1976, the City Planning Commission reviewed only applications related to zoning, the city map and urban renewal and housing. In 1976, the list of applications subject to Commission review was enlarged and now includes, pursuant to the City Charter enacted in 1989, those itemsdescribed below. The Charter's intent in requiring ULURP was to establish a standardized procedure whereby applications affecting the land use of the city would be publicly reviewed. The Charter also established mandated time frames within which application review must take place. Key participants in the ULURP process are now the Department of City Planning (DCP) and the City Planning Commission (CPC), Community Boards, the Borough Presidents, the Borough Boards, the City Council and the Mayor."  For more detail see: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/luproc/ulpro.shtml#ccr

Right now, the proposed development does not require ULURP. It is important to get the DOE to agree to ULURP because it puts the decision making process in to the hands of other players including the Community Board, the Manhattan Borough Present and the City Council.

Helen Rosenthal, City Council Candidate in the NY Press

How The Department of Education Made New Schools A Cause of Community Anger

Written by NYPress on March 22, 2013. Posted in Opinion West Side Spirit, West Side Spirit.

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By now, most Upper West Siders are familiar with the City Department of Education’s decision to demolish one of our local schools, P.S. 191 or P.S. 199, to make way for luxury housing towers in already crowded neighborhoods. There are so many fundamental questions about how this proposal came to be, a lack of discussion about whether or not it’s ever acceptable to sell public assets to a private developer, and why this proposal was dropped on the Upper West Side with virtually no notice that it has put an indelible taint over the entire project.

Go to the Article

Community Board 7 Resolution

On March 5th, 20113, Community Board 7 passed a resolution 34 to 0 concerning the proposed development of school properties including PS199.  This is the conclusion of the resolution:

"THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT Community Board 7/Manhattan calls on the Department of Education, the School Construction Authority and the Educational Construction Fund to:

1. Prior to the formulation and release of any RFP relating to these sites, conduct immediate, consistent and meaningful public outreach to all constituencies in the affected community and solicit public comment and concerns relating to all phases and aspects of the proposed redevelopment;
   
2. Provide a written commitment that the key aspects of any redevelopment proposal for these sites be subject to ULURP. "
   
   
   The full resolution can be found here.