The Board of Aldermen is scheduled to vote this Tuesday – tomorrow, the day after Labor Day – on the Zervas School Building Committee’s recommendation to acquire three residential properties on Beacon Street to expand the Zervas site.
The Newton Highlands Neighborhood Area Council has been monitoring the Zervas design process and providing community input regarding traffic, walkability, open space, and neighborhood impact. The NHNAC Zervas Working Group opposes this acquisition and has recently proposed “Plan B” – an alternative site plan to create more open space, increase pedestrian safety, and avoid spending $2.4 million to acquire the abutting properties. (Disclosure: I’m on the NHNAC Zervas Working Group.)
Accompanying this alternative plan is a survey of the 45 mature trees (18 species) in and around those properties that the current ZSBC plan would remove to make parking lots. Newton’s Urban Tree Commission has written a letter to the ZSBC and Design Review Committee to advocate for the preservation and protection of those “stately and spectacular” trees.
The NHNAC has also written a response to concerns raised about its Plan B by members of the ZSBC. Take a look the plans and weigh in. Is there something about the current ZSBC plan that’s worth an extra $2.4M and the loss of a 45-tree greenscape on Beacon Street? Is there something important and requiring a site expansion that NHNAC’s Plan B misses?
I’m pleased that several of my fellow Council members and others in the community have been able to put together something this thoughtful, detailed, and sophisticated. I hope everyone will read and comment on it. It might be the first time a community organization has responded this way to an engineering or planning proposal from any part of Newton’s Government. It deserves an honest hearing by the Board of Aldermen.
I do hope the Board’s vote on the City’s proposal that is scheduled for tomorrow night can be delayed until we can have a full airing of this substitute proposal. The project schedule for Zervas has time to look at– and debate– this and other alternatives
I would also like to propose a gentlemanly debate between Ward 5 School Committee Member Steve Siegel who’s been spearheading the City’s Plan and Newton Highlands Area Council President Srdj Nedeljkovic who has been the primary moving force behind the Plan B proposal described in Bruce Henderson’s post. These are two of the most trusted and respected officials in Newton. They simply differ on how this site should be developed. The venue could be at the Waban Public Library, the Newton Highlands Women’s Club, or some other suitable location in Waban, Upper Falls, the Highlands.
Extending this discussion is the fair thing to do and it will only enhance the credibility of whatever comes out of an extended review process.
I second that, Bob.I would love to see such a debate.
It also doesn’t seem fair to tell the BoA about a meeting on the Thursday before Labor Day and then ask them to vote on the following Tuesday after a three day weekend. That certainly isn’t enough time to speak to constituents or give this vote adequate study. Isn’t the BoA kind of sick of this behavior on the part of the SC? It seems like it has happened on other occasions.
One could say that it is only a vote about acquiring the properties. I disagree. Given the history of this project and the insincere community engagement around it, I worry that this vote will be heralded as an endorsement of the current plan and one more reason to just barrel through Newton North style. Remember, this comes from School Committee leadership that claims that the override vote was also a community vote for /enthusiastic endorsement of schools of 500+ kids.
The Newton Highlands Area Council has serious issues with the current plan and with tearing down homes to create treeless parking lots. They have also raised very good points about the flow of traffic, disjointed green space and pedestrian safety. The NHAC aren’t some crazy group of NIMBYs with pitchforks. They are the ELECTED representative body of the Newton Highlands community — the village that this project is being built in. NHAC represents the whole community. They’re the “big picture” community impact folks, representing more than thePTOs or abutters or current Zervas families. If we say that we want strong area councils, well, this is precisely the advocacy role that they are supposed to pursue. The inclusive, participatory system that we say that we want — the behavior that we said we’d learn from Newton North is — is being thwarted by a rushed vote.
It is dismissive of the NHAC and disrespectful of the BoA not to allow adequate time for the BoA to weigh and consider other options.
Maybe those glistening floors are still drying over at City Hall, but if anyone is planning to attend tomorrow’s BOA meeting, it is going to be at 100 Walnut Street, the Education Center, in Newtonville.
It will be interesting to see how the various BOA members vote. Even though this vote is just for the eminent domain aspect of this project, it will offer an insight into their support or lack of support for neighborhood elementary schools in Newton, which was once a major positive component of the NPS system. The added 160 students will not be living in the surrounding neighborhood.
Also, it will be interesting to see how the aldermen, who are proposing / supporting the construction moratorium, will vote. Since they want to limit new construction to just a 2o% increase of the former houses, let see how they vote for a city proposed new building that will be a 100% increase (from 40,00 sf to 80,000 sf) and from a single story building to a 3 story building. If they pursue the moratorium for the residents, will they exempt the city from its own moratorium?
Bob, I agree with your comment proposing a gentlemanly debate. You suggested the Upper Falls as a possible venue. Why don’t we hold it at the UF neighborhood elementary school? Oh wait, that might not be possible.
Hello Bob, Thank you for the kind words about Srdj and me. We have met, and emailed, and spoken about Zervas on so many occasions and I find him to be thoughtful, creative, and committed. I am sorry that we have come to view this particular project so differently but I’ve concluded that we are working with different assumptions and a different ordering of priorities.
For example with Plan A, students walking east along Beacon, north along Beethoven, and arriving by bus all remain on sidewalks, cross no active roadways or parking areas, and approach a common welcoming courtyard in the middle of the school site. In contrast, Plan B offers this experience only for those coming north along Beethoven; bus arrivals must either come into the building via a secure entryway on the other side of the building or walk all the way around the 3-story classroom wing to reach the entrance courtyard. Pedestrians coming east along Beacon must cross a very active driveway, and either enter the secure door with the bus arrivals, or also walk around the building. The duel entry points require extra staffing, are a compromise to our building security concerns, and are confusing to users (Think the old Angier — where was the entrance? How did one find the office?). I consider this to be poor design, and it represents a much less walker-friendly school than Plan A.
My point in making the above comments is not to begin to debate each issue here on the blog. Rather I want to emphasize that Plan B is not a new “substitute proposal”, as most of the elements currently being promoted as Plan B have been among the elements considered as part of a half-dozen or more major siting and lot size schemes. Many elements initially sounded good, but were rejected as they were poor matches for specific project objectives or regulatory requirements.
The designers continue to work the options and the winnowing process has been public and ongoing. I give as an example the onsite drop-off loop, presented by the designers but challenged at a public DRC meeting by the public, leaders of Safe Routes to School, and members of the DRC. The loop was modified and then ultimately eliminated, and the public had a direct role in this process.
The vote scheduled for tomorrow is not something being rushed on the aldermen at the last moment – it was requested mid-summer (that was indeed a rush!) and delayed until now to give the aldermen time to digest the planning and consider the purchase request.
I won’t participate in a 1:1 public debate on the merits of Plan A verses Plan B – I don’t believe that this is how good design gets done. But I have every expectation that a lively back and forth will follow the presentation to the Board of Aldermen tomorrow night, where the merits will be discussed, and I will be present and will contribute to that exchange as appropriate.
Also as Srdj and Steve and Rena and Bruce and others can attest, I will listen and share and discuss with anyone who wishes to contact me. [email protected], 617-901-4959
Thanks, Steve
I, like Geoff Epstein, believe that the plan to build a mega school in this location is a big mistake for the Zervas community. I also oppose the dislocation of 3 families for the purpose of a staff parking lot. This at a time of need for more housing is unfair to homeowners.
The Zervas community should continue to fight for a more modest school renovation at less cost. A new school for Newton Upper Falls would be a more community friendly alternative and money would be better spent.
The new Zervas will join 7 other Newton elementary schools with student populations ranging between 400 and 500. “Mega-school” is a catchy blog phrase but does little to accurately describe what this well designed, well placed, right-proportioned school will be to its students, teachers, and community.
Thank you Mr. Siegel for so clearly articulating the views and priorities of the silent majority. I do hope that you, your colleagues on the SC and the members of the BOA can manage to see through the noise generated by Mr. Henderson and his group to do what is both right and so badly needed for Zervas: build a school of sufficient size to support the programming needed by today’s elementary school students and whose facilities are those of a 21st century school and not the mid-20th century. It is shame that the houses will need to be acquired for this to happen, but it would be a bigger shame if the opportunity were squandered because a small group of people cannot seem to move past their own childhoods in terms of viewing how things should be.
While I understand that the committee cannot stop and engage in public debate for every citizen proposal, I think there’s much merit in this proposal and I hope it is considered very seriously. I look forward to hearing a thoughtful analysis, as there often are problems which aren’t obvious to the general public.
Assuming the building configuration and pervious pavement against Cold Springs as presented are tenable, it’s hard to see the down side to “Plan B”. The driveway, as I see it, is not a busy one, but a bus- and staff-only driveway. Given appropriate treatment on the pavement (e.g. raised or textured), a safe crossing is entirely possible. A common entryway for all students did come up in discussion as a priority, but would entering the same space from two sides really be that bad? Could adjustments be made to the building, such as a glass entry or even a pass through at the first floor level make it just as good? Would either of these two issues warrant the taking of three private lots and creating a sea of parking visible from the street?
As for the blue zone, the current plan does not actually widen the street, but rather carves out live parking spaces which presumably would make the current timed do-not-enter restriction unnecessary. That point needs to be made explicit in the A/B trade-off.
The plaza/gathering space is another one of those concepts which, so surprisingly, our paid experts had to learn about from the community. Plan B does take away 2K of that space, but it faces and adjoins a playground instead of a parking lot. I’d consider that a net gain. The overall layout, hiding parking behind the building and providing a streetscape of homes instead of cars is good planning which benefits the neighborhood as well as the school.
While this is a rare opportunity for the city to take properties for the good of the city, it would be irresponsible to do so without demonstrating that it is necessary. Indeed, with the current plan, taking the properties may work against our common goals.
@Steve. Thank you for your kind response. As I said, I think we are just seeing this from different vantage points and there’s nothing wrong with that, at all.
All of us share too many other values in common to let this disrupt friendships.
I just think this topic, including consideration of Plan B, deserves more than one Board session to consider and tat we need to bring the community into this extended discussion. Tonight will be a hot and muggy one and many of us including Board members are just settling in from a long weekend or extended vacation.
@Elmo. I assume you have carefully read Plan B and have concluded that there is too much in it that would preclude Zervas from being every bit as much a 21st century school as the School Board’s proposal. I’d be more impressed by a substantive rejoinder to what Srdj Nedeljkovic and others are proposing. Not senseless rhetoric and groundless putdowns of the proponents of Plan B by someone who won’t even identify who he or she is.
Are large parking lots and the destruction of almost a score of large treasured trees and other natural amenities the new prerequisites for creating a 21st Century School?? I hope not. The charge that Srdj, Bruce and others can’t move past their own childhoods in viewing “how things should be” is really ironic since I thought our schools were in the business of building positive visions and values for each child’s future. One of the things we should, in fact, be teaching is “how things should be”–or at least could be. We take pride about how green we are and all the great things we do in Newton to protect our environment. I can’t think of a better environmental message for young elementary school kids at Zervas than to walk them into this area of stately trees and have them know that we were able to save them by making other arrangements for parking.
Let the debate continue.
Both of these plans would accommodate the same number of students, right?
Yes, Gail, it’s the same building in both plans, supporting the same number of students with the same educational plan — and in the same 21st century! The building in Plan B has the orientation flipped and has the lower wing shifted 16 feet away from the wetlands. My understanding is that Plan B offers more outdoor play area (fields, outdoor classroom, garden) — 73K sq.ft. vs. 60K sq.ft. in Plan A — so I guess it would accommodate the larger number of students more easily from that point of view. Play space has always been tight at Zervas.
For anyone, like me, who may be interested in the tree impact, here’s an aerial view with the Plan A proposed parking lot superimposed, and the existing trees mapped (right-click to open in new tab): https://db.tt/IePbl8Ya
Bruce and I did the initial inventory — he mapped and I measured DBH and ID’d as many species as I could in the first pass. We ignored anything below the 8″ DBH threshold, and also couldn’t even see all of the trees on the 1316 Beacon property which is very wooded. Then I went over it again with tree ID books and 560mm of camera lens to see faraway leaves. Bruce did this great graphic. He also shot views as they currently exist, so you can take a virtual tour of the properties (it’s a big document due to all the photos; Rt-Click for new tab): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7874146/ZervasTreeSurvey.pdf
Before helping with the tree survey, I’d only driven by the school. I hadn’t even known that little parking lot on the Beacon side was there, it’s so green and tree-lined. Some could use pruning, but there are many magnificent trees that form a wonderful canopy that I would hate to see lost and replaced with a view of a parking lot.
Thanks Julia for your terrific photos. The point you make via your photos allows us to truly understand how changed this neighborhood will become with the loss of trees which are an important asset to the community.
The Zervas area should be kept with a moderate sized school. It is not the best site for a mega school. The renovated Carr school would be a suitable place to add 100-150 more students. Zervas is not the place for a huge school. I believe still that a new school in Upper Falls would be a better alternative.
Same space, CHEAPER, More open Space = NO-BRAINER except when the City of Newton is involved then it becomes an albatross
Great photos of those magnificant trees.
Colleen, I can’t take credit for the photos — Bruce did those, and the mapping of where you would be standing and which direction you’d be looking to see each view.
By the way, I was a little surprised by this criticism of Plan B:
Am I the only one who thinks a walk around the wing to the main entrance would be a good thing for kids who are getting bussed? It may be the only tiny little bit of exercise they’ll be getting before the start of school, since they’re not walking to school. It seems odd to consider it onerous to ask one group of kids to walk around a wing when we think kids in general would benefit health-wise from walking to school. With this philosophy, those kids will grow up to be the kind of adults who spend more time cruising mall parking lots in search of a space close to the entrance, than they’d spend if they just parked in the first space they saw and walked!
Steve S writes: “For example with Plan A, students walking east along Beacon, north along Beethoven, and arriving by bus all remain on sidewalks, cross no active roadways or parking areas, and approach a common welcoming courtyard in the middle of the school site. In contrast, Plan B offers this experience only for those coming north along Beethoven…”
You could build a wetlands crossing (a walkway) in back of the third property leading from Beacon St, along the back of the building, and to the play area on the north side of the building. No pedestrian-vehicle safety issues there and the path could double as a nature trail. Not sure how much cost that would add to the project, but probably a bit less than $2.4MM.
I meant the play area on the *south* side of the building.
Very cool idea, Steve.
But plan B really shouldn’t be any less friendly to walkers than plan A. If anything, it could provide a more welcoming approach walking by houses rather than parking lots.
As for those walking from points north and east: one curb cut, the existing driveway entrance and exit on Beacon remains unchanged. The other one, an entrance only, moves around the corner to Beethoven where it clearly services only buses and a handful of spaces. The driveway should be closed to all traffic but buses during drop-off and pick-up, and with proper pavement treatment, could even be a pedestrian zone.
Was anybody at the meeting tonight that could provide a brief summary of what happened after 10:45pm? I watched the discussion for 2 1/2 hours, and they were about to take a vote to bring it out to the board, when NewTV pulled the plug and a wine tasting program came on.
Once the BOA approves the Mayor’s request for funding the acquisition of the land, the design becomes more of a backroom discussion with much less transparent discussion of the proposed gargantuan school at Zervas!
Nothing final.There were three votes, but they all just postponed a binding vote on acquiring the properties. From what I can tell, it was voted out of the finance committee into the whole BoA. The vote to acquire the properties requires a 2/3 majority. Tonight’s vote had 11 Yays and 12 abstentions, which meant that if it had been a straight “Yay” or “Nay” vote, it would have been voted down. They are moving it out to Sept. 15th and asked for specific info from architects and planners. Really thoughtful comments on the part of BoA. Their meetings are alway so much more interesting and transparent than the SC’s. I came away really impressed with our elective representatives whether I agreed with their total position or not (for instance, really convincing Mark Laredo argument that demolishing homes for common good was not the same as demolishing them for profit)Too tired to post more. Need to go to sleep, but do so feeling very proud of the state of representation in Newton.The many voices, questions and points of view around this issue kind of obliterated any thought of downsizing the BoA.
My take away regarding the abstention vote was that Aldermen wanted a reminder of how we got to the current plan. Marcy Johnson asked “What schemes were considered and discarded?” David Kalis requested being given “a look under the tent” where decisions were made. Greg Schwartz inquired about what parking options had been evaluated. Amy Sangiolo wanted a better understanding of the rationale of the driveway positions on Beacon Street. Lisle Baker hoped that a review of the NHNAC’s Plan B could be presented.
Bruce Henderson and Julia Malakie did excellent work surveying the existing trees on the Beacon Street properties and plotting them onto a map of the proposed new site plan. Project planners are now trying to consider how they might work parking around many of the trees rather than removing them all. This would not only add organic screening from the street, but would umbrella over asphalt that would otherwise create heat islands of the parking lot, and would break up the (boring) regularity of the parking spaces.
On another note, Julia may have misunderstood an earlier comment of mine regarding bussed kids having to walk around the three story building to access the welcoming courtyard. I am more than fine with kids walking. My comment related to the important architectural concept of “arrival” to a space – I’d consider the arrival procession for kids bussed to Zervas under Plan B to be a design failure. An arrival procession may seem indulgently esoteric but it can strongly influence one’s experience of a place. We should get it right.
I strongly believe that eminent domain should only be used when absolutely necessary (both as a citizen and as someone who studied urban planning and public policy in college). If there’s a workable option for using the site without evicting people from their homes, that should be the preferred plan – and sparing trees is always an added bonus.
mgwa, all three property acquisitions are via negotiated agreements and not forced takings.
As one of the 12 aldermen who abstained, I had a very different takeaway. For sure, the proponents will need to lay out the rationale for buying neighboring properties far more effectively than was done last night. But the bigger problem is the site plan, even with the acquisition of the three abutting properties. Time and again the presenters made the point that the expansion of the existing school and programmatic needs require far more space than the existing site allows. Though I am sure it was not what they intended, I was reminded of Cormac McCarthy’s definition of a blivet in All the Pretty Horses.
I wonder why Mgwa has that impression. Could it be what they voted on last night?
“HIS HONOR THE MAYOR recommending that 1316 Beacon Street, 1330
Beacon Street, and 1338 Beacon Street, including trees and structures on the
properties, be acquired through purchase or takings by eminent domain for the
purpose of expanding the Zervas Elementary School site. [06/16/14 @11:17 AM]”
Since there was noted time discussing the wording language of the override last night and whether people had voted for a new building or renovations, if eminent domain is not to be involved, then maybe this language should be changed?
Steve – just because the agreements are negotiated doesn’t mean that the property owners feel they have much choice in the matter. If you call it eminent domain, that implies that they are being told they need to move. Even if they are given the ability to negotiate the price, they still are being pushed into leaving their homes.
Yes, I’m not sure you can call something a negotiated agreement when the threat of eminent domain is there. Not a normal negotiation that you can walk away from.
THM, I appreciate that you introduced the “blivet” (10 pounds in a 5 pound bag) concept into the discussion last night. You should add that the overstuffed bag will need to sit on a series of 30 foot pilings, which are needed to reach solid ground underneath the site.
Question: How many 30 foot pilings are needed to support a 3 story / 80,000 sf building with 490 students, 70 teachers and staff, and the associated equipment and materials ? I raise this question since Alderman Cote raise the issue of spending $2,400,000 of the project’s $40,000,000 for land acquisition instead of a more direct educational expense. It appears the pilings are in the same category of expenses trying to force fit the larger school on this property.
Most of the questions and issues raised last night stem from the 50% increase of the projected enrollment and staff; the added traffic flow of cars and buses, the added parking spaces, the general safety factors to be faced with the larger population, the sacrifice of green space for parking spots, the lack of adequate green space for the larger student body, etc.
BTW, during the discussion last night, multiple times the number 4 was used to identify the number of buses that will be coming to the school. With the new policy about fee free bus service for elementary students beyond a 1 mile distance (down from the 2 mile requirement), how many buses will now be coming and going at the Zervas location? How many of the projected additional 160 students currently live within 1 mile of the school?
@Patrick – You’re pointing to the elephant in the room. The entire venture is wrong-headed. Zervas itself needs new systems, renovated interiors and a small expansion. There’s no need to replace the building with one that is double the size. We should be doing a $4MM project there, not a $40MM one. Instead, we should be building a new school at Braceland Park in Upper Falls. That would add 400-450 seats to the system instead of 170 for about the same money.
Watching this process is like watching a child force fit the wrong toy pieces together. Why won’t it work?! Well, there’s an easy solution: don’t try to do that.
The new Zervas doesn’t fit and neither is it needed. We have no school in Newton Highlands, no school in Upper Falls and no school in Lower Falls. We’re busing those kids around willy nilly like a thousand pinballs. We need more capacity but why on earth are we trying to stuff it into this small residential neighborhood at all when we have a spot in Upper Falls?
To steal a phrase from Obama, I’m not against all new school buildings, just dumb new school buildings.
Since this thread has transitioned into a postmortem of the BOA meeting, I will add a compliment to Alderwoman Norton for raising the issue of trust and honesty regarding this project. Emily, maintain your position regardless of the gruff reply by Alderman Gentile to your comments. There are Newton citizens that agree with the message you voiced last night.
Even Alderman Gentile admitted the verbiage in the override question was vague with multiple possible interpretations. Until someone can show us documentation, that portrayed the proposed Zervas would a 3 story building with 24 classrooms intended for 490 students, was made known to the public prior to the vote, I will be skeptical of the actions of the SC. I will be looking to see what information, which was requested last night regarding this topic, will be provided to the BOA.
I believe the vague language used in the override question was intentional hoping the voters would assume the increased building size would be to re-establish and/or provide an auditorium, library, art room, music room, SPED space, permanent classrooms instead of modulars, and other services/resources eliminated over the last decade due to budget cuts.
Alderwoman Norton was right last night to remind the BOA and SC that people are assessing the honesty and trust factor associated with this project.
Patrick – The wording of an operational any override vote has some limitations that I can’t recall at the moment, but I attended multiple meetings – in every part of the city – during the override campaign at which the plans for Zervas were clearly and explicitly outlined, as were the plans for the roads and sidewalks, the increase of police personnel and other issues. The police and fire chief, superintendent, and the mayor were at each meeting providing details about the plans and answering questions. These meetings were at convenient locations and were well advertised in the TAB and on the city website.
To question other people’s integrity at a public meeting, if that’s what really happened, is really inappropriate when one does not have the facts.
The history of why Zervas was blended into a general override question starts with the fact Massachusetts School Building Administration (MSBA) needed Angier and Cabot as separate questions in order to be eligible for MSBA funding, right? In retrospect, Newton could have placed a 4th override question on the ballot addressing the $40 million question around Zervas. That would have avoided some confusion by telling everyone (that cares) that the Zervas expansion/renovation/rebuilding was just as serious a question as the two others. Anyone think we’ll learn from this?
There was a choice of anywhere between 3 and 5 questions that could have been placed on the ballot.
My position is that it is the voter’s responsibility to become informed about the candidates and/or issues before the vote takes place, no matter what. But when the information is so readily available and voters don’t take the time to access the information, then who’s to blame?
As an example, the Tab ran an extensive article about the condition of the roads in Newton and the plan to repair them in December, 2013. It was thorough explanation with graphics, explaining the problem with the city roads and the plan going forward. Perfectly “honest” and trustworthy. That edition was delivered to the front doorstep of every household in the city. You didn’t have to run around looking for the information – it was delivered to your doorstep! Yet I wonder how many people took 5-7 minutes to read it.
Jane — If you’re point is that “it is what it is”, I accept that. We need to deal with what’s in front of us. But if you’re point is that I didn’t pay attention, well I didn’t pay as much attention as you did, but I did focus on the presentation below. I did ask City Hall questions about some of the accounting aspects. And I did come to the conclusion that I thought I got it. I didn’t with respect to the extent of the needs at Zervas. But, again, it is was it is and the $40 million “it” would have been clearer as a separate override. Here’s the main presenation that I viewed (along with the excell spreadsheet stuff): http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/47381
Hoss,
You are exactly correct.
The MSBA forced the city to drop its omnibus operating override which included Angier and Cabot. Thank the Lord for that!
But the MSBA had no leverage on Zervas, so Newton relapsed to its past terrible capital financing practices.
If the Zervas project had been separated out as a debt exclusion, the vote would have been no unless the project had been thoroughly fleshed out for the voters.
Once it passed in the bundled operating override, the public lost very important leverage on the project design and cost and that is why the project has evolved in the current fashion.
The lesson from this is to never vote YES for an operating override with capital projects bundled in.
They should all be separated out like Angier and Cabot so the public can be shown the plan, provide feedback in a healthy, transparent process and then be afforded the opportunity to vote from a menu of options, each with costs clearly spelled out.
Angier and Cabot were very straightforward replacements, so the lack of options was not a hindrance.
Zervas is quite a different story.
If the current mega school option had been presented along with a set of other rational options, it would have been killed for sure.
With Zervas, the vote was taken before the discussion and analysis was done. Completely backwards.
NO MORE CAPITAL PROJECTS IN OPERATING OVERRIDES!!!!
This battle is ongoing.
It’s up to the Board of Aldermen to try to prevent a very big mistake being made with Zervas and to counter the poor management of capital project planning and financing by the Mayor, the Superintendent and the SC.
Hoss – Trust me, I saw the same PowerPont over and over again, each time with a thorough explanation.
My point is that if you looked into the operating override and voted no, I have no problem with that. Good for those folks – they were informed voters. If a voter never bothered to look into what the operating override included and voted yes and is now complaining about some aspect of it, then it’s hard for me to understand where that person is coming from. What part of $40m and 80,000 sf you missed, I really don’t know.
Jane, if the plans for Zervas were clearly and explicitly outlined at the pre-vote city-wide presentations, then it should be easy to provide that proof to the BOA, as it has been requested as of last night. I did not attend as many meetings as you prior to the override vote; however I did attend the one offered at NNHS.
(Hoss, thank you for providing the link to the presentation. I was trying to find it prior to responding to Jane.)
Jane, the only clear and explicit information provided at the meetings was that Zervas would cost $40,000,000 and be 80,000 sf (slide #24). All the pictures in the presentation talked to the enhancements to the facilities and resources I mentioned in my comment above. There was no mention of 24 classrooms, a 490 student enrollment, and the benefits of a 4 classroom per grade configuration. I am confident that information would have caught the attention of the audience. Maybe you can point me to the TAB article that identified the increased size of Zervas as you did with the “extensive (TAB) article about the condition of the roads in Newton and the plan to repair them” example.
I tried to become educated regarding the multiple issues covered by the override. I contend that full information (“clear and explicitly outlined”) was not provided by the SC and the administration. FWIIW, I voted for the Angier and Cabot debt exclusions because the parameters of the projects were well defined. I did not vote for the general override because I was not comfortable with the Zervas language. The other city departments almost lost out because of the SC. The next override could be harder for the other departments.
I still have not received an adequate explanation about the information put forth in the “Enrollment Analysis Report” dated November 2013 prepared by the NPS for the years 2013-14 through 2018-19. This is a report compiled a full 8 months after the override passed, the money source had been secured, and as Maureen Lemieux stated last night, the city would be setting aside $2.400,000 annually (plus the added revenue gained by the annual 2 ½% increase from ongoing added property tax charges) for the $40,000,000 Zervas project. In the report, Zervas’ enrollment projected through 2018-19 is still listed at 355 students. Why not the 490 students?
I do not expect to get an acceptable answer. Yet perhaps the BOA can get the SC and superintendent to explain why their document made available to the public long after the money was secured, does not reflect a 24 classroom / 490 student enrollment for Zervas. Someone should be able to explain what was happening in closed meetings between March 2013, November 2013 and today. Is the city collecting tax money now that it was not planning to use until after the 2019 timeline of the report?
What did you think? You were getting an 80,000 sf library and cafeteria that cost $40m? C’mon. The presentations were very clear in explaining that the very serious overcrowding at the elementary level was a citywide problem would require a citywide solution – no winners, no losers. Ten modulars at schools throughout the city and an expansion of Zervas.
I’ll look back into the archives of the Tab for articles about the need to address seriously overcrowded elementary schools and solutions. It won’t be hard. I just happen to remember the article about the roads off the top of my head. Enough for now though.
Just a note that Jane talks as if in the operating override one could vote on each specific element.
That is a really disingenuous position.
The operating override was bundled, with Zervas a minor and de-emphasised component.
The main thrust of argument was that the operating override would pay for additional teachers for the ballooning student population.
That’s what drew most voters in and that’s where the thrust of the SC argument was.
The road repair was another genuine, recurring item which made sense and certainly drew in anyone who drives around Newton. That made sense for a city side need.
But Zervas always came through the back door. A vaguely conveyed need.
The real dimensions of the project were deliberately left vague in the minds of most voters.
Certainly it was the Archilles heel of the whole package and could easily have torpedoed the operating override if the opposition had made its case better.
Hmm, I guess the reason people thought Zervas would be a renovation and expansion of the current building was because the headline on the Zervas slide in that presentation Hoss linked to read as follows:
ZERVAS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
EXPANSION/RENOVATION – 80,000 SQ FT
Jane – You’re now saying the “no” voters got it, and the “yes” side didn’t it they didn’t understand that Zervas would be school tear-down, just like Cabot and Angier? So the people that said Newton doesn’t deserve another $11 million of their disposable income basically because we could have taken more from public employees and gone to Home Depot and made repairs got it? Good one.
Patrick – the Enrollment Analysis Report gives student projections for district boundaries as currently drawn. Even with a decent idea of where the new lines may fall, until we know the specific streets included in the district, a projection to 2019 from estimated lines will just be a different form of guesswork. I can appreciate the confusion stemming from the current projection approach and will suggest that an explanatory paragraph be included in next year’s report.
As reiterated the other night, the City is collecting tax money now for Zervas, and putting it away into the Capital Stabilization Fund to be tapped when the annual payments for Zervas debt exceed the annual override amount designated for this school. Earlier this year bloggers questioned here how the numbers could cover the full bill – Maureen Lemieux demonstrated that the numbers work once the math considers that the taxes are accruing now while increasing by 2.5% annually.
Like many others I too had a preference for the Zervas and firestation projects to be broken out into separate debt exclusion questions. I don’t consider the debt exclusion vs. general assessment question for capital projects to be one of right vs. wrong, but each method has different consequences. For example had Zervas been on a debt exclusion, the money would not be assessed until it is actually being spent and it would not grow by 2.5% annually – thus the annual assessment, when made, would be higher than our current payments.
Jane, I am disappointed in your condescending reply; I consider you to be better than that. The city wide enrollment problem should be addressed by putting elementary schools in the neighborhoods where the kids live, not creating mega schools.
If the administration wanted to be very clear, they could have easily added that the 80,000 sf represented a doubling of the current building’s size. They chose not to add that piece of clarification, either visually or verbally in their presentation, so I guess you think shame on me for not asking. I am not an architect and/or building inspector so building size visualization is not something I do on a regular basis. I was being naive and trusting that the new administration would not try their version of the NNHS project. The new administration had done many good things to show they wanted to work with the community; I thought they had learned from the mistakes of the prior projects. It looks like I was wrong.
The current administration and the SC have taught me a valuable lesson; trust but verify. I will not assume any future projects and/or override requests are what they are without extensive vetting. You do not need to worry about my complaining; I am only one vocal voter. You do need to be concerned about the many silent voters who are learning and will be voting.
BTW, even if they had provided the data that the building would be double in size, I would have assumed a 2 story building, which would not be such a negative impact on the residential area as the now planned 3 story edifice. Again, another assumption that I will try not to make in the future.
Steve Siegel — Do you happen to know why our school dept budget surpluses over the last years weren’t also added to the Capital Stabilization Fund? The surpluses were: $1.7M FY12; $2M FY13 and $1.4M FY14 — that’s $5.1 million right there. Returning that money to school building needs would have been a good start to our longer term rebuilding. Is there an accounting reason those funds were used for other purposes, such as a tax-free benefit to employees which was the health care holiday?
Patrick, Ald. Cote asked a terrific question that all of the aldermen should be asking themselves: should the city be spending $2.4M for 3/4 of an acre for a parking lot (that averages out to $3.4M an acre!), or would that money be better spent on other things, particularly features which will result in savings over the life cycle of the building. I know this is one of the questions I have been struggling with the most. For instance, we just dropped my youngest off at college. Her college is committed to sustainable buildings and just opened its second LEED Platinum certified building. (This building, the Golisano Institute for Sustainability, is 84,000 square feet–about the same size as Zervas–and is in the top 1% of “green” buildings in the country.) I would LOVE to see a new Zervas with solar panels, geothermal heating and cooling, and other features that will not only save big bucks for the next fifty years but will also reduce our carbon footprint. THAT is the kind of school building Newton could be truly proud of!
@Jane, about 10 comments up (a bit off-topic but want to address one of your assertions): “As an example, the Tab ran an extensive article about the condition of the roads in Newton and the plan to repair them in December, 2013. … That edition was delivered to the front doorstep of every household in the city. You didn’t have to run around looking for the information – it was delivered to your doorstep!”
I’ve only been in Newton 3+ years but I did not realize that the Tab is the paper of record for Newton. I have never had a Tab delivered to my home. I have never seen a Tab delivered to a home on my street (I do take the Globe, so it’s not that we can’t be found). In my greater neighborhood (Highlands, but Angier district not Zervas), I can state from my early-morning dog walks that the Tab is delivered to less than 10% of homes. I don’t recall seeing a newspaper box selling Tabs. I once borrowed a Tab from a driveway (after it lay there forlonly for a few days) and perused each page, looking for a phone number or email to inquire about a subscription – I could only find a number for purchasing ads. Their web site is a mess with no clear connection to a print edition – if you click on a link for subscriptions you are taken to a page with a list of towns and papers which does not include Newton.
But then I found Village14 and stopped worrying about the Tab – although I would like to have seen the road repair article.
Steve, thank you for your extended explanation. I appreciate your consistent willingness to represent the SC on this blog, and to address the tough issues in a professional manner. Since it appears that V14 is presently the primary social media site for Newton discussions, it would help the SC’s image if more committee members were willing to engage here.
That said, I find the explanation of using currently drawn districts for the guideline to be unacceptable. Sandra Guryan and her staff are an experienced and very well paid group; I expect a better quality report. There is no obvious reference in the document that the Zervas capacity would be 490 students (I did not look for other schools’ capacities). There are 105 pages of data and information. I question its value if it does not address capacity. Where is the associated report that takes this data and matches it to potential problems coming down the road?
Steve, you are a president of a company. If you had an employee present you a 105 page document with lots of data, where you are required to constantly mentally adjust numbers because you know the provided numbers are obsolete, would you consider it acceptable? If that same employee gave you a report without identifying potential operational problems stemming from the researched data (example: a school will hit its maximum capacity requiring another classroom), would you consider the report acceptable? Would you not expect an executive summary at the front with not only the salient numbers but also the issues and potential solutions associated with the data?
I raise these points because this document was prepared 8 months after the city knew it would have the money for an 80,000 sf / $40,000,000 building that the citizens were somehow suppose to know would hold 490 students, and yet the report makes no mention that there will be sufficient (or lacking) capacity in the overall system. The same can be said for the Angier and Cabot projects.
THM, the alderman should also ask the question as to why all the other sites considered were dismissed so quickly. It now appears that in order to get the 490 student building on the Zervas site the following actions will take place:
1) eminent domain (if private sale does not work) of three private houses
2) excavation and replacement of the top layer of landfill on the site with a better draining material
3) rebuilding the 650 foot (approximate) culvert that takes the runoff from the 65 acres of wetlands under the school property over to Beethoven Street.
4) installing x number of 30 foot pilings to support the 3 story building (the pilings will be as deep as the school is high).
5) potentially cutting down the mature trees identified by Julia and Bruce surrounding the 3 private houses
6) adding a lane to Beethoven to alleviate some of the traffic congestion on Beethoven.
I offer these line items not because they are bad; they are all needed for the site to be viable. I offer them because it shows the effort required to make this site workable yet still overstuffed. Perhaps the BOA can use this list when comparing the issues presented for why the other sites were rejected.
BruceB, regarding home subscription of the TAB, my knowledge may be out dated. I have been getting it since home delivery started; I did nothing to get it. However the TAB has changed its policy. My neighbor tried for over a year to get his delivery stopped. He finally succeeded just in time for when he moved. The new home owner now can not get a delivery. He was told the TAB no longer accepts new subscriptions for free home delivery. Another new neighbor was given the same explanation.
Perhaps the TAB has updated its policy. Maybe Emily Costello can provide the current situation.
Patrick, on the one hand I can appreciate your point regarding the Enrollment Report. But know that this is not a stand-alone document — it is prepared for use by NPS, the School Committee, and the public in the context of a large volume of documents and reports that are made available to all of us throughout the year. We find it to be tremendously valuable as a planning document, even if we must use it in conjunction with other material to paint the fullest picture.
You may have seen the Major Reports section of the School Committee website, as well as documents that support agenda items for each meeting. Yes, Sandy and her staff are well paid, and they perform a tremendous amount of work for their pay!
Hoss – short answer about surpluses: there are 100 priorities for every available dollar. The surpluses emerged from the school department’s operating budget and were rolled right back in to address other needs arguably as pressing as our building issues. An answer can also be made by referencing the difference between capital vs. operating expenses, and NPS vs. municipal budgets (our buildings are paid for with municipal funds, but operated with school operating funds). But my first answer is probably the best: We have lots of priorities for our money.
Patrick again: You know what we are doing to make the Angier site workable?
• Cutting down 80 trees along the MBTA line.
• Spending $1 million dollars on a retaining wall to claim additional footprint where the trees stood since the current site is so small.
• Taking apart and permanently relocating existing community-built playground equipment to Carr.
• Ripping up Beacon Street and other nearby streets to create $2 million worth of improvements for safety and traffic flow.
• Relocating much of the parking that will serve the school onto what is now used as recreation space.
What’s my point? Every site has its issues. No matter where it sits, one must do a lot to make a construction project work. Want me to create a similar list for the Eliot Street DPW yard and Bobby Braceland Park? Few things make a project impossible. But these lists will be huge…
Steve, thank you for the link to the major projects webpage. I will spend time to find the report that addresses enrollment projections vs capacity.
I know enough to know every site has issues. I am looking at at the Zervas site, which will yield an additional 170 seats for students, compared against the other considered sites that could have yielded 300 to 500 new seats to address the city-wide capacity issue. The other sites also would have represented an effort by the SC to emphasize the value of neighborhood schools at a time when the city’s capacity needs significant expansion.
I still believe the greatest benefit of living in Newton is enjoying the unique village environments while living in a city with 84,000 residents to address common city infrastructure requirements. There are multiple villages that deserve to have a neighborhood school for their children. Expanding Zervas makes that less likely to happen. Tell me the new vision for Newton is one homogeneous city with reduced distributed services (like libraries and elementary schools), and I will plan accordingly.
Steve Siegel — Thanks for your answer on the surpluses. I know the issues about City vs Schools; and Operating vs Capital, so I do trust that you’ve covered various possibilities. (It is kind of funny in the accounting terminology that we put money from an “Operational” override into a “Capital Fund”, but I’ll go away on that topic). I do have some concern that sooner or later alderman are going to we repeated surpluses and just slice off $1 million or so of your budget, but again, that’s not a topic for today.
Steve, I wanted to reply to your comment to Hoss regarding budget surpluses in a separate thread so it would not get overlooked.
I feel you missed (or avoided) the intent behind Hoss’s question. He used the example of the “tax-free benefit to employees which was the health care holiday”. Are you saying that was a priority among the 100 options? Was that added payment identified as a requirement in the teachers’ contract, or was that a pleasant surprise to the teachers for which other city employees missed out? That it happened so quickly after the override did not sit well with residents, both those who voted for and against the added taxes.
Hoss says it was tax free. That is only the case if the city did not include that gift / extra income in their annual financial statement requiring the extra income to be reported to the IRS. Did the city include those payments in their overall annual pay packages? If not, Hoss is correct in labeling it tax free.
I don’t know if it would be too controversial — but there’s conservation land next to Zervas. Massachusetts has over the years granted rights to build things like sports fields on conservation land. Did we consider this possibility?
@Hoss, I was in attendance at a recent ZSBC meeting at which a senior professor from Brandeis (Eric Olson?) made a public comment in which he said that we are much too focused on the location of the border of the wetlands and not enough on what we are actually doing to protect the wetlands inside the border, which he indicated was not much. He said it doesn’t matter from an ecological standpoint if you expand the site into the current wetlands.
In response, Ouida Young, the city’s attorney on the committee said how difficult that would be to do legally. I thought she took an overly conservative approach, but I understand that’s her job. From a planning standpoint however, I think it makes sense to consider options that incorporate more land on the south and east sides of the current site.
Patrick – It was late and I was getting exasperated with the conversation, and probably shouldn’t have posted. My apologies. As you know, my strong feelings about this enrollment issue and the dilapidated condition of the elementary schools stem from my experience teaching in an overcrowded elementary school for at least my last 5 years before retirement. It was totally demoralizing to know that the BOA or SC cared enough to do anything and school communities had to battle for every modular. A number of aldermen made it very clear that we were a lower priority, that “the elementary schools can just wait” – a direct aldermanic quote. So the 2013 override made a huge difference in the morale in the schools. For the first time, the city was taking action to alleviate a very serious problem. You may not be aware that at least 3 northside schools are disgusting facilities as well as being overcrowded so I stand by my statement and Zervas can’t be exempt from the solution at the elementary facilities problem. We have schools with over 400 students all over the city and those schools will never have sufficient common spaces that the new Zervas will have.
I also stand by my statement that that it’s a voter’s responsibility to find out about the issues before casting a vote. Hoss, I said very clearly that, in my opinion, anyone who looked into the 3 questions and made an informed decision was making the right decision for him/herself, whether that was a yes or no vote.
BruceB-I’ve lived in 3 villages in Newton (including 2 dead end streets), asked the Tab not to deliver on several occasions, and there it is on my doorstep every week. If you don’t receive a hard copy, I suggest the Tab website – despite staff cutbacks, it remains a good source of local information.
Jane, your last comment reflects the Jane I have come to know and respect even if I do not agree with you on some issues. Thank you for your apology. David Fleishman could benefit from your mentoring on how to address a personal misstep.
I can feel your frustration stemming from the poor school conditions on the north side of Newton. You are justified to hold this frustration. Making Zervas’ capacity 500 will not help the north side schools. There are currently 7 schools with less than 400 students; 8 schools with more than 400 students with 3 of them in excess of 450 students. Those 3 schools (Countryside, Bowen, and Mason Rice) are suffering from not having a school in the UF to offload that requirement.
If I was in charge of these projects, I would have used the Horace Mann school in its current state of disrepair as the transition facility and placed the HM students in the newly renovated Carr School; they deserve it. The Angier, Zervas and Cabot communities are all getting brand new facilities; they could have waited an extra 18 months each while their new buildings were being constructed.
I would have also worked a miracle and somehow out negotiated the CATS Academy for use of the former Trinity Catholic school on Washington Street. I do not understand how an international organization with no presence in the US could out negotiate the City of Newton that provides so much tax free real estate to the Catholic Church. (They have/had 7 churches plus multiple schools, all with prime real estate. To me, the city had leverage that the SC threw away.) The back 2 story building contains 16 classrooms that were constructed as elementary grade level rooms. Each room used to hold 54 desks (plus a big one for the teacher). I would think the rooms could be adjusted to hold classes of 24 students each while meeting present day requirements. The 330 students at the Lincoln Eliot School could have been moved there after a renovation. Those moves would have given the north side two newly renovated facilities for the combined 750 students. The NPS could have used the front building as their offices and renovated their current location for additional middle school capacity. (Newton would never put two middle schools so close to each other; too confusing.) God help us if we need additional high school capacity anytime soon.
Of course there are many details to be worked out. But at least these actions show a plan to better balance the revival of the elementary facilities throughout the city.
And yet the SC gave David Fleishman a “stellar review (with an asterisk)”. Go figure.
Patrick said -” If I was in charge of these projects, I would have used the Horace Mann school in its current state of disrepair as the transition facility and placed the HM students in the newly renovated Carr School; they deserve it. The Angier, Zervas and Cabot communities are all getting brand new facilities; they could have waited an extra 18 months each while their new buildings were being constructed.”
EXACTLY- this was told to the SC on NUMEROUS occasions but gasp – you cant have the Angier students in less than stellar temporary accommodations now can we? A HM parent was told that Carr will be used for the next 20 years and HM is not even on their radar. WHY??
I think the idea of moving HM to Carr and using HM as swing space instead makes a lot of sense. The Carr neighborhood is very dense and it is causing a lot of hardship to have the buses and added traffic for the next 20+ years, not to mention the need for residents to purchase parking permits to park on their own streets now. In contrast Horace Mann is set at a distance from homes and has long stretches of space for buses along Watertown and Albemarle and car parking along Albemarle.
Someone mentioned what will happen when we need additional high school space? Well, the bubble is coming. My son’s seventh grade class was one of the largest since 1976, and there are two additional younger grades that are even larger. Right now, the middle school situation is tight. They have added a half team to Brown for this grade, however, the line to get food in the cafeteria is 50 kids longer than it is for the year before them. My son has stopped buying lunch since it can take 18 minutes to get through the line (if you are last), and then it leaves you less than 10 minutes to eat lunch (which my kid can’t do). The capacity issue is there over and over again. What happens when these younger grades reach middle and high school. It is my understanding that our middle schools are at capacity . . . . and what about classroom space for that bubble?
We heard from someone last night that when they moved into the Angier district 20+ years ago, that they were soooo lucky, because Angier would be new in 2-3 years. HA! 20 years have passed.
I am an Angier parent, and I feel that our community is taking a hit. I realize that moving HM to Carr would benefit the neighborhood, but in reality there is NO swing space on this side of town. Our community is being bussed to a school across town, and the first day of bussing did NOT go as planned (it was 90 degrees and bus drivers did NOT open their windows for the AM or PM run, and the busses were 30 minutes late for dismissal). The south side also has over enrollment as a direct result of no school in upper or lower falls. Our kids and neighborhoods are in constant shift of which elementary school the entering Kindy kids will go to. The grass isn’t any greener over here.
And as a working parent, trying to get to any community event at Carr is impossible. I slid in at 5:30 at Angier. Now, I have to pick up my kid in Lower Falls, and then drive to Carr. I feel bad for my kid, because we can’t make any community event at 5:30 PM, and even if I did, I feel terrible about parking in the neighborhood at Carr. I know our 100+ cars are not welcome, and I don’t want to add to traffic and congestion to the neighborhood, that I am not even part of. It is a tough situation that our city leaders didn’t think ahead, and continue NOT to think ahead. We only say Thanks to a guy that didn’t write his own speech.
Newton Mom
HOrace Mann would have been closer to Waban than Carr and more parking
Emily – WHY should residents Now have to pay to park their cars on the Street near Carr???
And yes the Traffic is 100% worse now that Carr is in full use.
Emily, it is too late for the Angier transition; that train (or buses) has left the station. Maybe the BOA could step in and influence the Zervas transition (and the following ones coming during the next 20 years).
NewtonMom, I would counsel you to not use the phrase “our community (Angier) is taking a hit”. The reason the Angier community is now experiencing 18 months of discomfort is because you are getting a brand new school, the first one in Newton for many decades. The HM community has not even started their 20 year wait for their new school. I believe you should rethink who is really taking a hit in this school capacity renovation project(s). Would you rather have the old Angier back? Too late for that.
I said: “God help us if we need additional high school capacity anytime soon.” It is a hypothetical statement, not a demand or a threat. Yet, if there is another penny spent on high school improvements before the elementary schools are properly address, I sense there will be a bad situation. There are 6 grades of parents and teachers in the combined elementary community; the high schools only has 4 years of people (voters). Jane, am I correct?
And finally, moving to either Carr or HM does not have a big impact on the Angier neighborhood, either your physical site and/or your schedules. The south side capacity with available swing space is a separate issue. The SC is trying to address the city-wide capacity requirement with problems rooted in decisions made 30 years ago. I believe they could be making better decisions; however I am not privy to discussions held in their executive planning sessions.
Patrick,
Our community didn’t rally to be #1 on the list. The school was in terrible shape, and others noticed, and the State School Building Authority noticed the terrible shape Angier was in. I have never been in HM so I can’t comment on that, but I do have to tell you that my children have never eaten in a cafeteria, but have been shoved in a basement hallway (all 80 kids of each grade) for years. And my kid is loving having a school that was meant for kids to eat lunch there.
My kids have each had classrooms in the basement with NO windows to see the weather. . . . .
Angier’s time was long overdue to be rehauled.
But I wasn’t the one to make that decision.
NewtonMom, I was only trying to assuage the anticipated replies that you can expect from the north side communities reacting to your “poor us” comment. I have lived in Newton for 50+ years; some in a north side village and some in a south side village. Angier is not the only school with less than acceptable conditions. The city has now addressed your situation. Zervas is next. I can not fault a reaction from the north side citizens negatively reacting to your comment.
BTW, I voted for the Angier debt exclusion; decades overdue. The same with the Cabot project; again decades overdue. I did not vote for the Zervas project because it was embedded in the override vote. You should take some time and visit some of the other schools. You will find Angier was not much worse than them. Perhaps Jane can suggest a list of schools to visit.
Perhaps I am all wrong, and your comment will be well received my all. In that case, my apologies for taking up your time needlessly.
There are no other elementary schools in the pipeline for renovation or rebuilding. That means if you have an infant and you live in the Franklin, L-E, and H-R districts, your child will spend her/his entire elementary years in facilities that are in desperate need of renovation/rebuilding right now, forget 5-10 years from now. NM, as your child has experienced in just one week, the condition of the school facility does make a difference.
On my Facebook page today, I received a photograph of a thermometer in a Newton elementary school classroom that read 87 degrees. It’s one thing for an adult who has some freedom to find a more comfortable space to live through a heat wave such as we had this week. But for young children to be trapped – yes, trapped – for 6 hours in a room with 22-25 other people in these conditions should be unacceptable to everyone in this city, but it’s not.
Jane,
Totally agree. No one should be in any room that is extremely hot or cold and so many of our classrooms are what you describe. Would our Alderman or School committee members work in such conditons day in and day out? No. Teachers and students in Newton sit in unacceptable rooms every day. And it has taken too long for Us to realize this. But I hear so many people tell me it isn’t really like that….they haven’t been in an elementary school in Newton for years.
When I heard someone say that Angier was historic, I thought maybe that person should work in that building daily and maybe that persons view might change.
I question the idea of discarding the careful thought that has gone into “Plan A” in order to save trees and modestly increase open space. Steve Siegel has summarized many of the design elements of Plan A that would be lost in Plan B and I won’t repeat them here. However, even accepting Plan B’s priorities, Plan B does not achieve them. By my count only about 7 of the mature trees are on city-owned property, all on the strip of land south of Beacon St. next to the Beacon St. exit. Most of these trees could be saved by modest adjustments to Plan A including eliminating a handful of parking spaces. These adjustments should be made. The majority of the trees in Bruce’s count must be on the 1316 Beacon property, which according to the Tab and public records has been foreclosed on. If the city does not buy 1316, it will inevitably be bought by a developer who will cut down most or all of the trees in order to fit the largest possible house on the site. There are at least 10 examples of this process around the corner on Beethoven Street. If, on the other hand, the city buys the property, some modest adjustments to Plan A can save at least some of the trees.
The concerns about the cost of the acquisition and capacity of the school should continue to be addressed, and the Joni Mitchell link is pretty clever, but the focus on trees is misguided.
…I should have added to my post above that the largest and most visible trees on the other two properties could similarly be preserved with modest adjustments to “Plan A”, and those trees as well stand a better chance of long term survival as public property.
It’s not all about trees. It’s not just tree cover that is lost in plan A, it’s the cover provided by residential housing and a streetscape adjacent to the school. Plan A replaces that with the view of a parking lot. Good planning suggests just the opposite.
Among Plan B’s priorities are saving the cost of acquiring additional properties, placing parking behind buildings rather than at the street level, a safe and welcoming approach and gathering area for pedestrians. Plan B achieves all these things.
It is indeed likely that some or all of these properties would become McMansions if not acquired by the city. Is replacing them with parking lots a better outcome?
Adam, with all due respect, someone could build two McMansions as you suggest. However the more important question is whether two buyers would actually buy the new houses. I am not rich enough to afford a multi-million McMansion (new houses on Beethoven are now selling for $2,000,000+). Yet if I did, I personally would want a high level of privacy at least in my backyard. I do not think they would have much privacy with a 3 story, 80,000 sf, 75 car “garage” McMansion right behind them with 500 noisy kids “living” there.
Patrick, not sure to whom the respect is due. I generally don’t like teardowns, and I don’t envy the people who would live at that particular location, but my guess is that there’s still an opportunity there for a developer. There are plenty of undesirable lots in Newton, they still get developed and the market finds a price for them.
I agree with Adam. The Waban address itself is an attraction.
Since this issue is largely boiling down to storing cars versus retaining trees and greenspace, how exactly were the 2 parking spaces per teacher justified in these new plans? Has an active transportation and traffic demand management study been conducted? ATDM is a framework to evaluate how to shift single operator car use to transit and active transportation. It gives a rational basis for determining how many parking spaces are really needed, versus the typical planning approach of just copying what’s been done before.
http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop12032/
It’s remarkable how in how many areas the Zervas project seems to violate best practices:
I count the following:
– parking and traffic management
– tree preservation
– play space for kids at school
– building next to wetlands
– walkable schools
– busing
– ensuring that override tax dollars are used effectively to manage the student population boom
– community communications
– municipal democracy
For those who support the current plan for Zervas, how can they keep a straight face in the future when they advocate for sound decision making in any of these areas.
Zervas Plan A is eroding the credibility of all of its advocates in multiple ways.
It’s weaknesses will be enshrined in brick and mortar for all to see.
Unless the city, its elected officials and its planners come to their senses and change direction significantly.
The Zervas project may well add to Newton’s portfolio of landmark bad building practices, such as two middle schools built next to each other, which no doubt was a creation of the same mindset we are seeing steamroll opposition now.
Nathan- An elementary school staff includes many other people in addition to the teachers. In fact, the teachers comprise only about half the staff, and maybe even less than that.
Jane, understood. But a plan to just provide a parking space for each employee does everything to promote single occupant vehicle use and attendant traffic congestion, and nothing to promote transit and active transportation.
Bowen has 0.4 parking spaces per teacher. How do they do that?
Nathan phillips – As much as some Newton groups hate cars/love trees, it’s really not fair to compare today’s needs with those of 65 years ago (Bowen), is it?
Hoss, I think we do need to re-think and make this very comparison. 65 years ago was the emergence of car culture with a goal to build more and more automobile capacity. Today most planners realize that we can no longer build our way out of traffic congestion. That is why states like California are reversing their major roadway design criteria from increasing car throughput as a goal (Level of Service) to decreasing vehicle miles traveled. Parking is a key lever on traffic congestion, although that is rarely recognized or acknowledged. Schools ought to be leading the way and setting active transportation examples for students.
In any case, where is the traffic/parking study for this project? Surely there is one?
Teachers/staff park on the street at many schools. Most teachers and staff live a significant distance from Newton and far from one another, not to mention we have very few elementary schools that are a near public transportation.
The “we’re helpless to change” argument is a standard comeback and definitely valid for some, but let’s be honest – this is really an expression of our convenience culture and a lack of will to change. But putting aside our opinions, where is the traffic management plan with numbers to justify the $2.4M parking lot?
Nathan, if you watch the replay of the Tuesday BOA meeting on NewTV, one of the consultants addresses your comment. Basically his explanation is that the parking will take place with or without the added property; it is a real requirement. If the added property is not acquired, then there will be sacrifices made with other more flexible requirements, most likely green space, so the parking can be placed on the existing site. The $2,400,000 is being spent to mitigate the problems with the overall project, not necessarily the parking requirement.
The problem is, as Alderman Hess-Mahan commented, that this project is trying to put 10 pounds in a 1 pound bag (a blivet) even with the added 3 properties. The underlying demand by the SC that the building have 24 classrooms is what is causing the site’s multiple problems.
The first school I went to had no parking spaces since it was built in 1862 but the others that had parking each had basketball hoops at the far ends for an extra benefit. The other benefit to Zervas is that the extra parking area would give the school visibility from a major road. Ever entity wants visibility.
Yes, back when we had streetcars running down comm ave and bikes overflowing at norumbega. How backwards we were and how far we’ve come!
Hoss wrote:
Hoss, it’s an elementary school, not a Walmart.
Adam — It might end up being our Walmart of learning if we don’t make it a respectable project; and that means putting our tax dollars prominently to work, not treating 1/10,000,000th of the elm trees in the area as a deciding point.