UPDATE:
UnCommon Schools and Upton and Partners withdrew their Proposal for a School Building at 361 Belgrade Ave in May 2022.
UnCommon Schools proceeded with a new Proposal at 69-71 Proctor Street near 1010 Mass Ave in Dorchester, which the BPDA has approved. UnCommon Schools, a for profit organization managing the non-profit Charter School paid $5.4 Million for the land, under the label of Roxbury Prep Foundation. The building is designed to hold 800 students.
The amended and Final Proposal at 361 Belgrade was to hold 567 students. This was clearly a veiled reduction, and became the primary opposition to the proposal.
ORIGNAL POST:
Roxbury Prep Charter High School is managed by UnCommon Schools. The Board of Trustees at Roxbury Prep is contractually bound to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to make decisions in the best interest of its STUDENTS. These Trustees should also ensure tax-payers, who inevitably fund these Schools, are provided with transparency and truthfulness in the decision making process. There is evidence to suggest UnCommon Schools is not making the students their first priority, and, at the same time, steam rolling the tax payers. ( Item A ) We request that the Trustees weigh the needs of the STUDENTS and community more heavily than the multiple developers, reject this project, and seek a more appropriate site.
Roxbury Prep Charter High School submitted a Proposal to the Boston Planning and Development Agency to build a school at 361 Belgrade Ave, the corner of the West Roxbury Parkway and Belgrade Avenue. On the West Roxbury/Roslindale line, this location is the gateway to West Roxbury. A nearby rotary acts as the hub to a major, 4-lane road way (Centre Street) and a major, 4-lane parkway (West Roxbury Parkway), which is already a confusing, congested and dangerous intersection. The project is actually in Roslindale, but will affect the West Roxbury community more directly. The result of a traffic study shows the area will boast a(n) F rating for traffic flow, with an additional 550 people only adding to the already troubling safety situation. Given the recent pedestrian fatality in the area, the proponents are ignoring safety concerns.
The two neighborhoods’ State Representatives, City Councilors and two Councilors-at-Large signed documents rejecting the location. ( Item B ) Their representation of community members resulted only in revision to the proposal, and not the selection of a more appropriate location. The 90,000 sq. ft. project was reduced to 49,520 sq. ft., which redefined their scope to meet BPDA requirement for a Small Project Review, effectively eliminating community involvement.
There is no educational rationale presented for dramatically scaling the building down. If a larger building was appropriate based on an assessment of student needs and educational programs, why would the Trustees and school administrators accept less? Once built, despite promises to the contrary, there will be pressure to approve a larger building, as there is no room for future expansion of the student population, capped at 250 additional students.
In addition, the following explanation does not give the West Roxbury community, whose neighborhood organizations have also voted to oppose the project, a voice: West Roxbury Neighborhood Council, and the West Roxbury City Councilor is not allowed to participate in the decision making process because the project is in the City-designated neighborhood of the Roslindale Shopping District, despite the deed listing West Roxbury.
The original objective of this Real Estate project was to bring the students from grades 9 and 10 (located in Hyde Park) together with their classmates in grades 11 and 12 (located in Roxbury). The parents tell us the students were promised a State of the Art School, to include Arts, Music and Media rooms, swimming pool and basketball court, and location for students to park cars. The location was also chosen for its proximity to the Commuter Rail.
However, the commuter rail trains don’t stop at that location at the beginning or ending of the school day. ( Item C ) And the bus stops are about 400 feet from the school. The current proposal shows only a Basketball court with locker rooms on a different floor, below-grade classrooms adjacent to the underground parking area, and none of the previously mentioned STEAM related rooms in the facility. And students, according to the school administrators, will have to sign away their constitutional right to park in legal parking spots in the neighborhood. The administrators’ solution to curb this parking is for community members to squeal on the kids!
The BPDA announced two meetings in January and February, which were really hosted by the representatives of the Developer ( Item D ) and the for-profit Real Estate company, which is the silent Proponent of the Roxbury Prep Charter High School. ( Item E )
There are no notes for the January meeting on the BPDA website. Both the Proposer and BPDA, despite their duplicity, have presented their organizations as wanting to cooperate with and participate in the Community. However, their approach has been to inform us as to how they would implement their plan. In addition, at a public meeting, a representative for the School said the contracts with the Land-Owner, Developers, and LLC have already been signed, signaling a done deal.
Finally, letters of support for the the school, many encouraged by the Proponent’s PR company’s smear campaign, have divided the community, some of whom have participated in the neighborhoods for over half a century, by claiming NIMBYism and racism. This is highly offensive and cannot be farther from the truth. The signs on some front lawns are not against the building of a school, but against the 361 Belgrade site. Both neighborhoods have become diversified over the years and everyone, who wants to contribute to the quality of life of both neighborhoods, is welcome.
This is truly a REAL ESTATE project, driven by the financial interest of developers, not the needs of the STUDENTS. This fact sits in the shadows of a worthy endeavor to provide students with a better learning environment, where the students are the losers as the school administrators settle for a sub-standard and unsafe location. Give them the State of the Art facility on a campus!
Why not develop another site for this important effort, to give these students the facilities they have been promised? Why should the community be prevented from supporting the future leaders of the City of Boston to let a Development effort control an opportunity for these STUDENTS to meet their potential?
There are too many unanswered questions for this to move forward.
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