QCC Hails SCA Plans For Schools At Creedmoor
By Corey B. Bearak
and James Trent

The Queens Civic Congress (QCC), a coalition of more than 97 civic, community, cooperative and tenant associations, finds the School Construction Authority (SCA) Board of Education plan to construct three schools at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center now consistent with the original plan to develop the site and design the schools put forth by the QCC’s Special Committee on Creedmoor. In particular, we note plans to enter the site at Union Turnpike, save trees in the wooded slope corridor bordering the Grand Central and Cross Island Parkways.

The Queens Civic Congress, acting through its Special Committee on Creedmoor, reminds the SCA and Board of Education officials to ensure the use of the entire property in accord with a Master Plan developed over two years by the community groups surrounding Creedmoor and incorporated in the Master Plan submitted to the governor by the Queens Borough President’s Working Group on Creedmoor. The Working Group included the Queens Civic Congress, community groups, School District 26 board members and officials and local elected officials. At successive meetings that included Board of Education officials, the Queens Civic Congress made clear the need to use the entire site to provide students a full range of facilities, including athletic facilities not be readily available at other sites being developed at schools elsewhere.

The current plan would site the three schools across 19.3 acres and anticipates the later acquisition and use of the rest of the land for storm water retention and ball fields. The congress still notes a preference for spacing the three schools along the entire site for better spacing and individuality of programs. The congress takes no position on the proposed high school as the High School of Teaching Professions with 1,182 seats and serving grades nine through 12 and the assignment of P.S./I.S. 208 with 925 seats and P.S./I.S. 266 with 760 seats to the Chancellor’s School District. The congress strongly recommended that the Board of Education work with the community as the plans for the school and its programs progress.

Absent the spacing out of the schools along the entire approximately 32-acre site, the Queens Civic Congress seeks clear design plans showing use the remaining space adjoining the sites for the schools to serve as athletic fields and playground space to serve the students of various ages who will attend one of the three schools In addition it makes sense to provide sufficient on-site parking when there exist no nearby streets to accommodate parking for personnel.

Page 33 of the Creedmoor Master Plan, the Public Educational Complex, states: "Any configuration shall

make use of the entire 26 acres for

public school purposes and

schools shall be developed as part

of a unified architectural plan. In

addition, adequate athletic

facilities and open spaces shall

be incorporated into these plans."

Moreover, Board of Education officials clearly represented at the Sept. 15, 1999, Creedmoor Working Group meeting, that it planned to proceed as if it purchased the entire site. As the plans proceed, this must be followed. The community will accept nothing less.

The city should engage community involvement in its proposed major revamping of the traffic light signal system at Union Turnpike at the proposed new front entrance to the campus, since it would involve a major change in traffic and traffic patterns at a new intersection. The congress expects full with environmental protection activities including safe removal of any unsafe asbestos in the buildings to be demolished.

At a time when other communities oppose school sites, the SCA and Board of Education should show a clear commitment to work with communities abutting Creedmoor who identified this site and applied the political pressure to get uniform support of elected officials for a three-school plan for the entire site.

The Master Plan outlines a framework for the SCA and Board of Education to work with the community. It makes sense to follow this guide for engaging the community successfully in planning for new schools.

Corey Bearak is Queens Civic Congress executive vice president for public affairs. and James Trent is chair, special committee on Creedmoor. and treasurer.