By Joe Maniscalco
If you only see one movie this year, you may or may not want to make it the latest Star Wars flick. But if you only attend one community board meeting this year, May 24’s meeting of Community Board 15 has got to be it. Not only will the community finally get a chance to see Le Marquise owner Alex Klein’s proposal to reinvent his Kings Highway catering hall as a new hotel, but the Department of City Planning will also be explaining just how much of Sheepshead Bay and its environs it thinks ought to be “down-zoned.” If that’s not enough, Region 7 Superintendent Michelle Fratti is expected to be on hand to answer questions about why so few outstanding students from P.S. 195 seem to be admitted into the Bay Academy for the Arts & Sciences. The pubic hearings will begin at 7 p.m. inside the Faculty Dining Room located on the campus of Kingsborough Community College, 2001 Emmons Avenue. Klein’s representatives were slated to present their bid to add three stories to the already three-story Le Marquise catering hall at last month’s board meeting, but postponed the appearance in order to give developers more time to retool their plans. The latest designs reportedly call for an 89-room hotel with a 344-space underground parking garage at 815 Kings Highway. An off-site parking lot, also yet to be built, could hold another 90 cars. Total capacity of the building – including guests and employees — would be capped at 2,000. The lobby could also include 1,000 to 2,000 square feet of retail space. City Councilmember Simcha Felder has said that many of his constituents would be “delighted” to have a hotel at the corner of Kings Highway and Avenue P, as long as it was not “overwhelming.” Many already consider condominium development – especially around Sheepshead Bay and Plumb Beach — to be overwhelming, and they’ve carried on a long grassroots campaign to have it stopped. At the last meeting of the Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association, Councilmember Lew Felder announced that he had requested “every square inch of this community that isn’t already being built on with a new grandfathered project be down-zoned.” Previous meetings with City Planning have left the actual scope of any rezoning effort in doubt. Opponents of overdevelopment want the scope to be extensive. Developers and some property holders looking to make as much money as they can on their investment want it curtailed. Fratti’s expected appearance at next Tuesday’s Community Board 15 meeting is the culmination of a special campaign Manhattan Beach residents have been waging to get the Department of Education to respond their charges that the admission policy governing Bay Academy has been altered, leaving far fewer seats for their children. According to critics like Community Board 15 member Dr. Allan Ditchek and Community Education Council member Ira Zalcman, P.S. 195, located at 131 Irwin Street, has traditionally been the “feeder school” for Bay Academy located at 1401 Emmons Avenue. Dr. Ditchek called on Fratti to personally explain to parents why a school that in the past has graduated between 50 and 60 students to Bay Academy only managed to secure about seven seats for their high-scoring children last year. Fratti has maintained that the DOE’s admission policy had not changed and that preference was first given to District 21 students. P.S. 195 lies within District 22. Any recommendations or resolutions Community Board 15 may ultimately decide to render are strictly advisory. Klein must win approval from the city’s Board of Standards & Appeals in order for his hotel plans to proceed. The proposal to “down-zone” parts of Community Board will ultimately be considered by the New York City Council. For more information about the meeting, call the board’s office at 718-332-3008.
