COMMUNITY EDUCATION COUNCIL DISTRICT 3

154 West 93rd Street New York, New York 10025 - Room 204 Tel (212) 678-2782 Fax (212) 678-2804 Email: CEC3@schools.nyc.gov
Joseph A. Fiordaliso
President

Kimberly Watkins
First Vice President

Zoe G. Foundotos
Second Vice President

Kristen Berger
Secretary

Council Members: Manuel Casanova Noah Gotbaum Theresa L.C. Hammonds Pradnya Joshi
Daniel Katz Vincent Orgera, ELL Member
Declan Saint-Onge, Student Member

Lucas Liu
Treasurer

Ilene Altschul
District 3 Community Superintendent

Zoning Committee Update, August 22, 2016

At CEC meeting on Wednesday, August 17, committee chair made recommendation to CEC to publicly offer
support for one proposal or the other by the end of September. The Panel for Educational Policy must receive the
re-siting proposals for PS191 and PS452 by early October if they are going to vote by November. In addition, CEC
support for one proposal versus the other will allow the committee to isolate the intricate components that the
community needs to fully understand as we get closer to making recommendations to the CEC on the formal zoning
proposal that will be offered. Recommendation was made to set last Wednesday (Sept 28) as a Special Calendar
meeting for this purpose.
1. Upcoming dates
Tuesday, September 13 at 9:00 am will be a working zoning committee meeting to strategize appeal
to engage all affected school communities in both possible scenarios. In addition, we will work to
complete an FAQ's for the community as we proceed with the zoning exercise.
Two zoning/re-siting hearings:
Monday, 9/19 at 6:00 pm, location TBD
Saturday, 9/17 at 1:00 pm, location TBD
Additional hearing dates in October to be determined
Official request to all schools potentially affected for participation in upcoming meetings and hearing
and effort for additional meetings internally.
2. Important Points since last Zoning Committee meeting
The most recent slide deck offered by the DOE can be downloaded on the Zoning Committee page at
cec3.org. It was presented by Office of District Planning at meeting on July 20, 2016 and has NOT
changed due to recent announcement that the Riverside Center school would open in 2017 instead of
2018.
Riverside announcement eliminates transitional year (2017-18) with only zoning changes ahead of site
changes the following year, in 2018. The most recent slide deck offered by Office of District Planning
at July 2016 CEC meeting still applies. No dates were offered in this presentation.
However, questions remain unanswered in both scenarios:
Question #1 for Scenario A: What is the timeline and process planned for the creation of PS342 for an
opening in 2017?
Question #2 for Scenario A: What is the PS452 growth plan in O'Shea if it does not move?
From Superintendent Altschul:
Date
#
From
Tentative room #
rooms
school
September 2017
1
03M245
316
September 2018
1
03M245
317
September 2019
1
03M245
315 or 318
September 2020
1
03M334
Undecided
Question: Scenario B includes unresolved issue of what to do with O'Shea space if PS452 moves to the
vacated PS191 building? A PreK Center was cited as a possible option. If this is the case, what capital

work must be completed by 2017, and what is the timeline for this work? Will MS245 grow as well,
and if so, by how much?
3. Opposition to the Zoning and Re-siting scenarios has been isolated to PS452 move and to 165/185 West
End Avenue thus far.
452 opposition has been based on distance to West 61st St as well as the belief that Scenario A does a
better job at solving overcrowding at southern end without causing overcrowding at PS87 and PS9.
212 emails in opposition, with roughly two dozen people emailing more than once
change.org petition with 600+ signatures
165/185 West End Avenue opposition has been based on the decision to split the Lincoln Towers
building and the 50 years of history the complex has had with PS199. In addition, some residents have
called the process of who decides where the lines are drawn into question.
111 emails in opposition
change.org petition with 200+ signatures
Zoning committee focused on its work to engage members of the community who are not aware of
changes thus far.