By Nicole Breskin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT – The Community Education Council threw a new school rezoning proposal into the mix for consideration in Lower Manhattan to counter options offered by the city.
The alternate proposal – which, if approved, would ultimately decide what schools children go to in TriBeCa, Battery Park City and the Financial District – was offered up at a public hearing on Wednesday night in the Financial District. The council covering school district 2 presented the new zoning option to address public outcry to two plans put forth by the Department of Education on Nov. 18.
The revised option extends the boundary in TriBeCa to allow applications for coveted seats at P.S. 234 from residents living up to Murray Street and Broadway. But it cuts off a northern cross-section of the neighborhood uptown from Laigh Street, zoned in the city’s plans for the P.S. 234, and rezones that area for P.S. 89.
The plan also brings children in the area south of Vesey Street in Battery Park City into the catchment for P.S. 276, which had previously be allocated for P.S. 89 further uptown in both Department of Education proposals.
While the new option placated fears of parents packed into a room who turned out to the meeting ready to protest one or both of the Department of Education’s proposals, it opened the door to a new wave of criticism.
Gateway Plaza resident Andrew Bell, father of a 4 year old, was thrilled with the new option. He wants his daughter to attend P.S. 276 in his neighborhood of south Battery Park City. But both of the city’s plans would see her at P.S. 89 further uptown.
“This new plan is the best one,” said Bell, explaining that there is a natural, community divide between south and north Battery Park City at the North Cove Marina. “Otherwise we’d be the only residential building in south Battery Park City zoned for P.S. 89."
TriBeCa families agreed with the expressed merits of the council’s proposal.
In TriBeCa, many parents prefer to send their children to P.S. 234, an established local school, rather than P.S. 387 – a new school in the Financial District, which opened in fall 2009.
Grace Flood, of 295 Greenwich St., came to the hearing armed with a petition with 195 signatures protesting the Department of Education’s first proposal that divides the condo and its adjacent sister building at 275 Greenwich St.
Both buildings sit down the block from P.S. 234. But under the city’s first option, children at 275 Greenwich St. are zoned for P.S. 387, while their neighbors at the adjacent 295 Greenwich Street are zoned for P.S. 234 in both plans.
“We have a simple request,” said Flood, who is on the board of the buildings, collectively called Greenwich Court Condominiums. “Please keep both buildings zoned for P.S. 234.”
She said the new option mitigates concerns raised by the Department of Education proposal.
However, by adding new families zoned for P.S. 234, the new plans takes upper TriBeCa out of the catchment allocated for the school and places the area into the zone for P.S. 89 in Battery Park City.
The Community Education Council opened the floor at the hearing specifically for comments from residents of the northern TriBeCa area affected by the redrawing of the zones. But none came forward at the meeting, where the announcement of a new plan came as a surprise to parents.
“Happy people don’t usually come to evening meetings,” said Shino Tanikawa, co-chair of the Community Education Council's zoning committee.
“But there is a whole new group of families that won’t be happy,” she said, anticipating disapproval of the new plan by upper TriBeCa families.
Adding to potential woes, Michael Markowitz of the Community Education Council said that the new plan doesn’t necessarily eliminate the possibility of lotteries, which had been the purpose of rezoning in the first place.
The most recent option might incorporate too many children into the zone for P.S. 234, Markowitz admitted.
He hoped for additional feedback to prevent a lottery that could result if too many applications are received for any one school. If necessarily, the council said it would reduce the catchment for P.S. 234.
“P.S. 234 is a logical school for more families than can be served by the facility,” Markowitz said. “Therein lies the dilemma.”
The Community Education Council has final say on which proposal will be approved.
The council's next meeting takes place on Dec. 16.
