Neighbors say school's plans don't fix parking problems

Construction will create 23 more campus parking spaces for students

By Kate Carter

Nearby residents aren't happy with Presentation High School's construction plans, that they say would increase parking and traffic problems on nearby residential streets.

A Sept. 26 neighborhood meeting was the second hosted by Presentation staff and construction leaders to inform neighbors of plans to build a 17,000-square-foot theater and classroom complex on the campus.

The building itself isn't a problem for most residents. What neighbors really wanted to hear was that increased on-campus parking would be a part of the project, and they weren't impressed that the proposal would provide only 23 additional parking spaces.

Most neighbors said that they don't mind students parking in front of their homes. They do mind students parking illegally, taking all the available spaces, and parking over trash piles on pickup day or leaving behind messes.

"All we're asking for is that the girls respect our space," said neighbor Linda Guerreiro.

Residents on streets around the Plummer Avenue school held a meeting of their own on Sept. 23, to come up with a unified strategy that they could present at the meeting at the school.

Guerreiro said that these neighbors gave the school board and trustee members a Sept. 26 letter that outlines residents' concerns, including parking that interferes with access to and from homes, speeding down residential streets and litter left in yards and streets.

The letter also proposed various solutions, ranging from requiring students to pay a parking fee to cover the cost for traffic policing, allowing only seniors to drive to school, and building a parking garage where the softball field is now.

"If they would work with us, I think that there are things that they could do," Guerreiro said.

Presentation staff heard about neighbors' concerns at the first meeting, held on July 19. Since then, they said, they've made changes to try and improve the situation.

Principal Mary Miller said that Presentation has prohibited students from leaving and returning to campus during the school day in an effort to reduce neighborhood traffic. Students are now required to register their cars with the school and display decals that identify their cars as belonging to Presentation students. And staff has been evaluating the usage of their lot to make sure spots aren't going unfilled.

Listening to residents' frustrations, school staff told them to report illegally-parked cars to the police.

"If a student is illegally parked and you don't want to tow it yourself, you call us and we'll have a truck take that car away," Miller said.

However, police officers who respond to parking problems often either issue a citation, or try to get the owner to move the car, instead of having it towed, which some residents say isn't good enough.

School officials said they are doing everything they can to remedy the situation.

"We've tried to be very on the spot in terms of neighbors complaints," Miller said. "But I don't think anyone thinks we're a good neighbor."

While some neighbors say that Presentation's efforts have improved the situation, many want the school to do more.

"We cannot mandate that students can't park on the street," said Vice Principal Gloria Hernandez. And school staff said that they can't afford to build a parking structure on the campus.

City code requires that high schools provide a parking space for each staff person and every seven students. With 70 staff and 713 students, Presentation officials say that they are required to have 163 spaces. The school already provides 188 spots and will have 211 with the end of the new construction.

Neighbor Jeff Manning says that because Presentation is not a public school, many students don't live near enough to the school to take public transportation or walk. The city's regulations don't require enough parking for a such a car-oriented school, he said.

"There's a large percentage of juniors and seniors that drive to school," Manning said.

Nearby residents say that the parking and traffic problems have increased in recent years as school enrollment has grown. In 1990, Presentation had approximately 450 students. Miller said that now the school is at maximum capacity and has no plans to increase enrollment.

"We have a philosophical agreement that enrollment will stay at about 700 students," she said at the meeting.

The new building is not intended to accommodate more students, she said, but to accommodate a growing curriculum and provide space better suited to classes in technology and the arts.

The three-story building will have two above-ground floors over a basement level and will be 33 feet tall, two feet taller than the school's gym. Construction is scheduled to begin in April 2001, and be completed by December 2001.

District 6 legislative assistant Melinda Waller said that Councilman Frank Fiscalini's office is trying to do something about the traffic problems.

"Your concerns are very important to us," she told residents at the meeting. "But these issues aren't contingent on the school's plans for the new building."

Waller said that she had sent a letter to Sam Koosha of the city's Department of Streets and Traffic, asking him to look into the problems, specifically into possibly turning some curbs near driveways into red zones and installing two-hour parking signs on residential roads.

Planning department project manager Anastazia Aziz said that she would bring neighbors' concerns to a meeting on Sept. 29, with the planning director. The meeting will determine the department's response to the plans for the new campus construction.

Steinberg Group architects, who are designing the building, will receive a letter from the planning department about their proposal. Another neighborhood meeting will be held in the following months.

Earlier concerns from neighbors about noise from air conditioning and lighting on the new building have been addressed to most of the residents' satisfaction.

But Steinberg architect Ernie Yamane said that the school's site could really only accommodate at most 215 parking spots.

"We'll probably never get every single car off the street, but we're trying to get as much as we can," he said.

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