The 534-seat school, PS 499, also…
By Daniel Arimborgo
About 100 local civic leaders and residents turned out last week at a Community Board 8 public hearing at Ryan Junior High School to protest the planned construction of an elementary school on the Queens College campus.
The 534-seat school, PS 499, also known as the School for Math, Science and Technology, would house students in the first through eighth grades.
Construction of the permanent structure is scheduled to start in the fall of 2003 and take two years to complete at a cost of $31 million.
College officials had nixed earlier plans to place the school on a corner of the campus straddling Melbourne Avenue and Kissena Boulevard, reportedly because of underground complications and the fact that area constraints would have meant making the building 10 stories high. The presently planned structure would be four stories.
Queens College spokesman Ron Canava said April 24 the matter was now entirely in the hands of the School Construction Authority.
The plan is to build the school on the north side of the campus along Reeves Avenue. The School Construction Authority made a “conditional negative declaration” on the plan, meaning that the SCA concluded there would not be enough environmental impact to warrant disapproving the site.
“The SCA’s claim that PS 499 will have no significant environmental or traffic impact on the neighborhoods surrounding the Queens College campus is as absurd as the Public Service Commission’s claim that building generators in Long Island City will have no effects on those neighborhoods,” said Patricia Dolan, president of the Kew Gardens Hills Civic Association.
The KGHCA, whose members live closest to the college, has estimated that it will take some 50 buses to bring students to and from the school.
“Introducing PS 499 into the community with no attempt to lessen the traffic and other burdens on its neighbors is folly,” Dolan said. “We expect Community Board 8 to send a strong message to the SCA, CUNY, and the Board of Education: if we must have this school in our community, then the responsible public agencies must reduce the heavy traffic and environmental burdens now.”
Kenrick Ou, the School Construction Authority’s manager of operations, said teachers and support staff might use public transportation or pay $10 in parking fees, but Dolan said that was unrealistic and employees would use public parking spaces.
“The School Construction Authority asks the Community Board to believe that there are hundreds of parking spaces available on local streets where PS 499 teachers and staff can park,” KGHCA members told the community board in a prepared statement. “No matter where on the campus a facility is built, that building will displace parking onto every block around the campus.
The Association asked Community Board 8 to add a condition to the board’s approval of the Reeves Avenue site — “new, free, dedicated free parking to accommodate school buses, service vehicles, staff and faculty.”
Board member Bernie Diamond supported the contingency proposals outlined by Dolan and others.
“We are saying other things should be happening to make that school possible,” Diamond said. “We unanimously decided to present a resolution dealing with our concerns and what we would like to see as attainable mitigations.” Diamond added that the community board was sensitive to the area residents’ concerns.
The only people seen to speak in favor of the school were the principal and teachers, save for CB 8 member Rory Lancman, who said that any traffic problems were manageable.
The school already has about 100 students, who attend classes in a few trailers on the campus. Grades are being added one per year from the lower grades up.
Students are selected through a lottery system and will not come from the district, a point that has sparked much of the community’s opposition to the school. Opponents also say that the school would aggravate traffic conditions in the busy area.
Reach reporter Daniel Arimborgo by e-mail at timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300 Ext. 141.
