The Planning Board voted unanimously last night to approve three permits required for construction of a new elementary school at the intersection of Ashley and Cross streets.
The board voted 7-0 to approve its findings and set conditions, before voting to approve a special permit, the site plan as presented, and a stormwater management plan, at the conclusion of the public hearing, which lasted more than two hours.
A dozen residents spoke emphatically against the project to construct a 600-student, 96,000-square-foot, two-story structure on the municipal-owned 6.9 acre parcel, stating that the massive building project will destroy the character of their neighborhood.
Residents said they fear the school will increase the volume of traffic using those residential streets and cause congestion at the beginning and end of the school day. Residents also said the project has inadequate parking and uses too much of the city’s green-space recreational fields.
Other issues raised were the safety of children walking to the school and emergency evacuation routes for students and staff members, as well as emergency vehicle access to the site.
Karen E. Jaiclin of 13 State St., asked why residents were not included in the early planning stages of the project.
“We feel that we have been shut out,” she said. “The school (building) is too big. Construction will be insufferable and traffic intolerable.”
“Where is the common sense? You need to be hearing us and not just rubber stamping this project,” she said. “We are frustrated to be living in a city where the government is not listening to residents.”
Dan Smith, whose family owns property at 36 Cross St., right across the street from the school site, said the building will be “grotesque” in the residential setting.
“That school will annihilate the neighborhood,” he said.
Dean Winters of 34 Cross Street said the project will adversely affect the value of his property.
“How can looking out my front at a brick wall increase my property value, destroying my view of the old, historic, school and ball fields?” Winters asked.
Marcus A. Jaiclin of 13 State St., said residents would embrace a smaller “neighborhood school” project.
“But this building is grotesquely out of scale,” he said. “The school has a 1.3 acre footprint. The imposition of that building on the neighborhood is staggering.”
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik spoke in support of the project as a cost-effective means of resolving the issue of students attending classes in two substandard buildings.
“This is not 20 years ago, when we could do two elementary school projects and expect a 70 percent reimbursement from the state, which is about what we’re getting for this project,” he said. “This is our one shot to right size the school district.”
Knapik also refutes comments that the planning process was conducted “behind closed doors.”
“That comment about closed doors is not true. This has been a very public process. We have had to comply with the state’s open meeting laws.”
Knapik said that the project will have a positive effect on property values in the surrounding neighborhood, noting that his family has lived on East Silver Street, across from the intersections of Lindbergh Boulevard and Cross Street, for the past century.
“Every neighborhood where we’ve built a school is now the most desirable neighborhood in the city,” he said. “Nothing that will ever come into the neighborhood will provide a better return on the value of our homes.”
“This is an opportunity to invest $36 million in the most impoverished children in our city,” Knapik said.
Leslie Clark-Yvon, principal of Franklin Avenue Elementary School and a resident of the downtown area, said the Franklin Avenue and Abner Gibbs schools do not support education nor the delivery of student services.
“Abner Gibbs and Franklin Avenue, which are both in dire need of replacement, service the children of our community most in need of services,” she said. “This project is the most cost-effective school option and it is vital that it be in the neighborhood.”
Maggie Adams, the principal of Abner Gibbs, said that when her building was constructed in 1914, it was a state of the art educational facility that was used as a model throughout the state.
“But it no longer meets the needs of our children,” she said. “We need better space, this is the opportunity to build a school (that sets new state-of-the-art standards in the state). The children of the downtown area deserve this opportunity.”
Ward 2 City Councilor James E. Brown Jr., a resident of Lindbergh Boulevard, and a member of both the Westfield Little League and St. Peter’s/St. Casimir’s boards of directors, said that while 20 residents came to speak against the project, he has heard from many more of his 6,000 constituents who support the school project.
“This is the opportunity to take kids out of a 100-year-old building and put them into a state of the art facility. It is an opportunity for the city to make an investment in our children,” Brown said. “It is a downtown school, part of the overall downtown improvements.”
