FACILITIES

Spring/Summer 2004 (v#81&2)
Five Quick & Inexpensive Ways to End Overcrowding

By Michael Woloz

At press time, the leadership of the state legislature
was still formulating a plan for state
facilities funding. Even if the Chancellor is
successful in getting $6.5 billion in direct state sub-sidies
for his $13.1 billion capital plan more needs
to be done to reduce school and district overcrowd-ing.
Here are five innovative ways this can be done:

1. Reform the leasing process.
Leasing arrangements provide the city with inexpensive new
schools in existing spaces and are particularly effec-tive
when neighborhoods undergo population shifts.

• The City must offer a competitive RFP
  process where large real estate firms assemble a
  bundle of buildings in neighborhoods without
  enough schools. The firms would be responsible
  for ensuring that the buildings are pre-qualified
  (environmental tests, feasibility studies, and land-lord’s
  backgrounds) and provide these services at
  no cost, as is the custom with commercial leasing
  projects. This will give the city a bargaining
  advantage, as it can always go elsewhere without
  having spent a dime on preliminary studies.
  
• Create an open bidding process for all design
  and build elements to encourage contractors to
  participate. This will lower the overall cost of
  leasing projects.
• Adjust strategies to make leasing space to
  schools an attractive idea to building owners such
  as agreeing to longer lease periods. The current
  policy of one-year termination clauses is often
  unreasonable to building owners.

  
  Example: In 2003, the real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield
  negotiated a deal that resulted in the lease, design and construc-tion of Millennium High School, which occupies the 13th floor
  of a skyscraper in the Financial District, in less than five months.
  The urgent timeline to open Millennium High School forced the
  city to explore quicker, faster ways to get the job done. As a
  result, the leasing process was greatly accelerated when a single
  brokerage firm performed all the necessary groundwork and
  negotiated a fair deal on behalf of the city.

2. Build New Schools Using Innovative Financing.

• Reform and reactivate the Educational Con-struction
  Fund (ECF), created in the mid-1960’s to
  encourage mixed-use developments with school
  components. The ECF became inactive in the
  1970’s after completion of only 14 schools. The
  ECF must be reactivated, but it must be reformed
  to allow the city to enter into partnerships with
  residential developers and create mixed-use
  residential/school buildings that could be built
  with tax-exempt bonds.
• Look to examples like Buffalo, which was
  able to secure state approval for the renovation
  of up to 19 schools, a project that is not only
  eligible for State Building Aid, but is also funded
  through short-term borrowing by a private partner,
  thus dramatically reducing the City of Buffalo’s
  share of the costs. The project also created a union
  apprenticeship program so that the renovation
  process would create more training and skilled-job
  opportunities for young people. NYC must closely analyze Buffalo’s success in getting its innovative
  finance proposal approved by Albany and see how
  we can use such funding to both create and reno-vate
  schools.

3. Build New Schools on Existing School Property.
By building three or four story school facilities —
extensions or new schools —on existing school
property, the city can reduce overcrowding and
create smaller class sizes in a relatively quick and
inexpensive way. Since the city already owns the
property, a number of costly and time-consuming
hurdles are immediately eliminated. Here are the
low-cost advantages to this strategy:

• No need to purchase land.
• Minimal land clearance costs and little possi-bility
  of environmental hazards.
  
• Shared facilities, such as playing fields and
  kitchens, will maximize state Building Aid.
  
• More large high schools can be converted
  into a campus of smaller schools.
  

  Example: In 2000, PS 21 in Flushing, Queens built an exten-sion
  on property that the school shares with the Parks Depart-ment
  in a jointly operated property ownership arrangement. Thir-ty-
  seven modular units were built, trucked over, configured at
  the site and seamlessly connected to the main facility in less than
  a year. Today, the extension which, from the outside appears as
  if it was built from the ground up and is very similar in appear-ance
  to the main facility, houses classroom space for 300 students
  as well as a multi-purpose cafeteria/gymnasium.

4. Spend Money Where the Need is First.
While many neighborhoods suffer from school overcrowd-ing,
the City must build new schools in the most
overcrowded school districts first. Let’s start by
relieving the most overcrowded elementary schools
as of September 2003 by building new schools in
these districts.

Example: 1. PS 92 (District 6, Manhattan) - 505 students over
capacity
2. PS 7 (District 24, Queens)- 347 students over capacity
3. PS 89 (District 24, Queens)- 333 students over capacity
4. PS 108(District 27, Queens)-333 students over capacity
5. PS 152(District 22, Brooklyn)- 306 students over capacity
6. PS 105(District 20, Brooklyn)- 287 students over capacity
7. PS 83 (District 11, Bronx) - 278 students over capacity
8. PS 161 (District 17, Brooklyn) - 256 students over capacity
9. PS 60 (District 27, Queens) - 254 students over capacity
10. PS 88 (District 24, Queens) - 252 students over capacity

5. Reconfigure Existing Schools.
In some cases an elementary school may be overcrowded while a
neighboring junior high school has capacity to
spare. Some districts, like District 17 and District
23 in Brooklyn, have reconfigured grades by estab-lishing
Early Childhood Centers (K-3rd Grades) in
middle schools. It was done at a fraction of the cost
of building new schools since expensive amenities
like cafeterias and gymnasiums were not needed.

Three schools that have reduced district over-crowding
by establishing Early Childhood Centers
are MS 394 in District 17, Brooklyn, and MS 323
and IS 271, both in District 23, Brooklyn. At these
schools, principals reported that the reconfigu-ration
of grades in the building helped to turn
their schools around and gain reputations as
“safe schools” where parents wanted to send their children.
Parents and teachers have also reported positive results.