West New York is planning a land swap that may allow the town’s Board of Education to build its new middle school, which has already been on hold for the past two years.
The West New York Board of Education wants to build the new school on the 84,000 square feet of land surrounding the Joseph Coviello Recreation Center site on Broadway and 57th Street.
While this property remains on the “Green Acres” inventory, the board is unable to build on it. Green Acres is a type of state funding meant to preserve municipalities’ open space and recreational facilities.However, the town is planning to trade land behind Public School No. 5 and on the waterfront for the recreation center property.
A public hearing on this land trade is set on Feb. 26, and the proposal will be sent to the state for approval after the hearing.
Trading land
To meet Greet Acres regulations, the town is proposing to “trade” the grounds surrounding the Joseph Coviello Recreation Center and the old 7,600-square-foot Strada Park at Broadway and 61st Street for a new 174,000-square-foot waterfront soccer field developed by Roseland Properties and the new 15,000 square foot basketball courts behind Public School No. 5.
The property around the Recreation Center became a part of Green Acres inventory automatically after the town applied for funding on a different piece of land.
“Once you apply for Green Acres funding,” said West New York Business Administrator Richard Turner, “all public recreation space in the community automatically becomes part of the Green Acres inventory.”
However, in order for the Board of Education to use that land for their new middle school, the town would have to come up with land of equal or greater space and quality to take its place.
“The only way to change the use of that land is to come up with a suitable substitute of recreational space,” said Turner.
However, the square footage of the soccer field and basketball courts that the town is proposing to give to the Green Acres inventory is more than double the amount of square footage in the recreation center grounds.
“Not only are they getting a better quality than what was around the recreation center,” said Turner, “but the space is also larger.”
Originally the Memorial Field, which is currently used by the recreation department and Memorial High School, was part of the land swap, but was taken off the proposal because of its size.
“[The Memorial Field land] became too large a piece of property to maintain,” said Turner.
Middle school
Plans for the town’s middle school that were put on hold for the past two years would finally come to fruition with the proposed land swap. The plans were initially on hold because of funding. The town was waiting for the State Supreme Court to decide if the Abbott (urban “special needs”) school districts were going to get full or partial state funding for the construction of new schools.
With the new bill signed by former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman in July that allowed Abbott School districts with special needs to receive full funding for new schools, the plans were again up for approval. “[The plans for the middle school] have gotten a tentative approval if everything else is cleared,” said Superintendent Anthony Yankovich.
And this approval couldn’t have come at a better time. With a bill that makes offering free early childhood education mandatory for all 3- and 4- year olds in Abbott districts, school officials say this new facility will free up space in the overcrowded elementary schools for these early childhood classes. This year, the school board contracted with 18 private child-care centers to house many of these children.
Currently, the district has six K-through-8 schools and no middle schools. The new middle school will accommodate 900 seventh-and eighth-graders and some Board of Education offices. This will also decrease class size in the elementary schools where enrollment has reached more than 6,000.