Monday night the Great Neck public schools had a meeting with the residents directly surrounding the proposed new parking lot for the GNHS to present the renderings produced by their architects.
It was interesting in that it demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the current parking conditions and traffic in the neighborhood at the beginning and end of the school day.
There does not appear to be recognition of the hazards that will occur when 86 new cars approach the single entrance from several directions during a 10-15 minute period.
The school administration insists that the students arrive over a longer period of time. The residents living on the surrounding streets watch this on a daily basis and see when the students arrive.
I have rarely, if ever, seen an administrator, much less the architects (who basically admit to not taking the time to observe), witness student arrival, and yet they doubt this.
They, and at the last Board of Education meeting some parents, also claim that there will not be 86 new cars approaching since these are the same cars already parking on the street.
The problem with their idea is that there is very limited parking on the streets surrounding the school so that at most, only 20 or so cars are parking on the streets.
Thus, the 86 new cars in that lot are new parkers. Those deciding on the lot clearly do not understand the situation as it exists and the hazard they are creating.
When a traffic study was suggested by the audience, the district representatives were noncommittal.
When discussing drainage of the water from the lot, the architects told us to essentially trust them. The problem is that those of us who have dealt with water issues know that this is not so easy and often fraught with error.
The architects could not provide details but assured us that they know what they are doing. When asked about their bona fides, their answer was that they have done billions of dollars worth of projects and know what they are doing.
No specifics were offered and they did not answer if they have ever paved over a sloped green space before. If their eventual proposed solutions don’t work, it is the school neighbors who will have to deal with the consequences.
What guarantees do we have that the school district will have the money or desire to address the inadequacies of their “solution?”
After all, they are not at the bottom of the hill. Look at the upper parking lot. It has minimal drainage. The reason field 2, where the new lot is to go, receives so much water is that the water is coming from the inadequate drainage of the upper parking lot.
The school administration also thinks that the students will no longer park along Beach Road, enabling them to control the students’ cars.
Unless there is a change in the municipal parking regulations, how will the school prevent such parking? In one instant they propose a gate to keep the cars in until the end of the school day.
The next minute they point out that the students going to jobs leave at varying times – how do you keep a gate locked if the cars need to leave at varying times? They then say they will have a guard posted.
Yet they then state that they currently have a guard posted, but that they still cannot control the cars. Then they say the reason for this is that the guard is not always there. So how will building a new parking lot ensure that the guard will always be there?
The administration seems to be confused, so the planning for this lot seems to be confused. Can we trust that they really understand the implications of what they are doing?
Dr. Prendergast, to her credit, thanked the attendees for their comments and the information that they provided.
However, if the school district had arranged such a meeting in advance of the bond, they might have learned about these issues much earlier and either planned for them or have thought of other solutions to the parking issues, such as using the Parkwood lot instead.
With all of the drainage issues and the need to control ingress and egress from the lot, is the apportioned money even adequate to complete this project?
Perhaps the school district should step back and really think about what they are proposing. Perhaps they should test their ideas for a gate and guard either in the current lot or at Parkwood.
Perhaps they should offer Parkwood as an option for the 120 or so parkers they anticipate having in the current and new lower lot and see how that works out. Consider a shuttle bus for the students from Parkwood.
Perhaps it will work so well there will be no need to pave over a field.
Or, if the parents are so concerned about providing their children with a parking lot so that they will not have to walk far, let the students park in the upper lot and have the teachers park at Parkwood and provide a shuttle bus for them.
There are multiple possibilities that should be investigated before embarking on a school project with no educational value.
As was pointed out at this and several Board of Education meetings, if the school district had invited the neighbors to a meeting prior to deciding to proceed with this project (as neighboring municipalities are required to do when a homeowner proposes major structural changes to a property), the problems the proposed parking lot poses and alternatives would have been offered prior to the school district fracturing the community.
Robert Mendelson
Great Neck
