Condo Growth Imperils Schools
The Gotham Gazette reports on an unforeseen downside to the condo boom: too many students suddenly flooding a fragile system. “The influx of students threatens to undermine the quality of nearby schools — often the very thing that helped attract young families in the first place,” they write. Schools are overcrowded, and the more attractive…
The Gotham Gazette reports on an unforeseen downside to the condo boom: too many students suddenly flooding a fragile system. “The influx of students threatens to undermine the quality of nearby schools — often the very thing that helped attract young families in the first place,” they write. Schools are overcrowded, and the more attractive an area becomes, the more its land values increase, creating even more of a school-building quagmire. Brooklyn neighborhoods where population growth is expected to exceed school growth include DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn and Sunset Park. They write, “Some 3,000 new apartments are being planned for an area around one school in DUMBO — PS 287 — but the department has no plans for any new schools in the area, according to the comptroller.”
The Three C’s: Condos, Classrooms and Crowding [Gotham Gazette]
school bus lot. Photo by limonada.
New Dumbo condos are adding kids to the schools and the school most of them are zoned for is PS8.
fsrg — PS8 overcrowding is due to BOTH it being a better school AND more new condos in the zone.
And to the original post — “Some 3,000 new apartments are being planned for an area around one school in DUMBO — PS 287 — but the department has no plans for any new schools in the area” is somewhat misleading as the condos are generally not zoned for PS287.
As far as I can tell PS287 is zone is mainly composed of the projects, which is an entirely separate issue and one the DOE should address. Who knows maybe they will rezone some of those “luxury” Dumbo condos away from PS8 and towards PS287 to help alleviate the overcrowding at PS8.
s’odd. Maybe different depending on where the school was. My schools were all in my neighborhood. In fact my elementary school was right down the block. One of the things my mother did was volunteer in the school library. Of course my father worked all the time but it seemed mothers in the neighborhood wee actively involved. Not agressively, the way I get the impression parents are now. But nonetheless.
Schools will catch up.
ER, I was born in 1954 and went to some West Harlem ghetto schools, and even tho my parents were white and educated, they did none of those things except help with homework. Their attitude was leave teaching to the professionals and it would all work out.
“was born in 1964 and my brother in 1968. neither of our parents ever:
attended a PTA meeting
did fund raising
helped us with our homework
ran a scouting meeting
assisted our teachers
or basically anything related to our going to school. ”
Whoa- that’s sad. And I’m surprised because I was always under the impression the schools in the burbs had more active parents than in NYC. Fundraising probably not though considering schools didn’t have the same financial problems they have today.
Still, if as fsqr says, great schools depend on the parents involvement, and he also says pre 1960’s schools had great reputations, seems to me bxgrl is correct about parents being involved even back then.
i was born in 1964 and my brother in 1968. neither of our parents ever:
attended a PTA meeting
did fund raising
helped us with our homework
ran a scouting meeting
assisted our teachers
or basically anything related to our going to school. my dad did drive me and a couple of the neighborhood kids to high school until i got a car. but, that’s it.
and, this was totally normal. of course, both us went on to graduate from private universities and become successful professionals with families.
however, that was the burbs, and this is the city. I do think a bunch of well educated parents can make a school great.
when we moved last time, we looked for underutilized school (PS 17) with good stats, so that we could avoid the overcrowding thing.
the current demographic is poor hispanic for PS 17, but that demographic is dwindling because those folks can’t afford to rent in the area anymore. from our building alone, 4 kids are going to pre-K there next year. add on all the other new families, and boom – new hot school. (insideschools gives it a 5 in math, it has a federally funded library, principal won an award as one of the country’s best principals and the DOE gave it a B+ last year – higher than 321 actually)..
i advise people shopping to buy to really dig deeper to find out about schools. there are more options than people think.
Thanks fsrg. I thought the whole concept of allowing abatements for luxury condos in the first place didn’t make sense.
Biff….they were
It seems a bit absurd these days to continue to allow these tax abatements just about anywhere. Where can one argue that development is needed? At least, in addition to Park Slope, they should be nixed just about everywhere in Manhattan, DUMBO, BH (as limited as the development is there), Cobble Hill, etc.