The Three C's: Condos, Classrooms and Crowding

By James Trimarco

The current flurry of new luxury housing construction in New York City has created a number of quandaries for the city's public schools.

The influx of students threatens to undermine the quality of nearby schools --often the very thing that helped attract young families in the first place. To further complicate matters, the high land values that good public schools help create make it increasingly difficult for the city to obtain land on which to build new ones. Developers see the expensive real estate as appropriate for only the most profitable projects, and that does not leave much room for schools.

State Sen. Liz Krueger, whose Upper East Side district includes some of the most severely affected areas, has been urging developers and the Department of Education to find solutions. "Given the value of real estate in New York City," she said, "why should we have any schools, firehouses, or police stations at all?"

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