Neighborhood opposes day care center in street

Neighbors and local activists are calling the city to task regarding a proposal to provide day care for hundreds of kids on and under a city street.
The application before the Board of Standards (BSA) is to allow construction of a day care center in Auburndale which could accommodate as many as 250 children aged two to six-years old in the proposed two story building.
The drawings call for a rooftop playground which would be fenced in and two basement floors, one which would have a windowless classroom.
Among the problems for local residents is that the lots on which the center might be built include land, which is mapped to be part of Francis Lewis Boulevard, which bottlenecks down to fit under the Long Island Rail Road trestle a block north from the proposed building site.
Francis Lewis Boulevard is at least one lane wider in both directions on the other side of the railroad, and also just a block south of the proposed location, which is across the road from an elementary school (P.S. 130) on the east side of the boulevard.
As a matter of procedure, construction in the bed of a mapped street is prohibited unless BSA approves. Approval regularly comes unless the Fire Department or Department of Environmental Protection makes a specific objection - if for example, the city has budgeted to widen the street within the next 10 years.
Community activists think the rules are too much of a “slam dunk” for development.
Henry Euler is chair of the Parks committee of the Auburndale Improvement Association, which represents homeowners in the area. “The BSA is also supposed to take into consideration community concerns,” he insists.
According to Euler, the proposed day care center is a disaster waiting to happen. “The streets at that corner are just too narrow to have people dropping off children that young, who will be in car seats,” he suggests.
Euler finds other faults with the plan. “The stairways are all on one side of the building. How are you going to evacuate the basement room if there’s a fire on that side?”
The application was recently heard before Community Board 11, which roundly rejected the plan, which had been modified from an earlier proposal.
“They withdrew an earlier plan when they acquired the property next door,” Euler said. “Instead of using that property to provide a drop-off area or parking for staff, they made the center even bigger and more of a burden on the community.”
Several neighbors spoke out against, and none in support of the proposal before the Community Board, which forwarded its objection to the BSA, which is expected to make a decision before spring.