A meeting on Wednesday night over a planned expansion by the Berkeley Carroll School brought out a wave of opposition from neighbors on St. Johns Place and Lincoln place concerned about the impact on their quality of life that a larger building (which would also fill in the rear open space) and rooftop play area would have. (Check out a photo of the rendering here.) The concerns of those opposing the project were summarized in an email we received: “We believe that the proposed expansion of the School is in contravention of the law, will threaten the integrity of the neighboring properties, will further reduce light and air to residents while substantially increasing noise attributable to the proposed new elevated roof-top playground and will significantly compromise the quality of life for neighboring residents and threaten the residential, landmark character of our neighborhood.” There also appears to be a lot of ill-will in the community from expansion projects that the school did in the ’70s and ’80s that negatively impacted neighbors. The school, through its headmaster, had this to say about the rationale for the expansion: The way our kids work [in school] has changed. They do a lot more group work, collaborative work and we need space for that. The library is all filled up. We’re looking to create more study space to do the work. The meeting ended up with “shouting and name-calling,” according to one reader who was there, but there were promises of a follow-up meeting to continue the dialogue.
Town-Gown Showdown Over Berkeley Carroll Expansion [Brooklyn Paper]