Community activists and elected officials rallied in front of City Hall last week to support an effort to close a loophole that allows the city to build new schools atop contaminated sites with little review.

Bills soon to be introduced in the New York State Senate and Assembly will require that schools set to be build atop land leased by the city be subjected to the same review process as schools built atop city-owned land. Activists hail the bills, claiming that this will close a serious loophole.

“The Mayor’s plan NYC report appropriately states that ‘Protecting the health of New Yorkers must be our primary concern’ and that ‘for too long, communities have been left out of the process of reshaping their neighborhoods.’ This bill would protect health and promote community input,” said Dave Palmer, a staff attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

The School Construction Authority (SCA) either builds new schools or rehabs sites such as former factories from land leased to the city. To build a new school, state law requires the School Construction Authority to submit a site plan to the local community board, gives the City Council an opportunity to review the site plan, and requires environmental review – all of which give communities notice and an opportunity to participate.

Such is not the case when the SCA leases. No review or notification is required when the SCA rehabs an old office building or factory, etc, that is being leased and transformed into a school.

“We follow all state legal requirements in preparing work plans for clean-up of sites as well as plans to manage sites following remediation. Site management plans contain all monitoring and maintenance deemed necessary by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation in accordance with New York State law,” said Department of Education (DOE) spokesperson Marge Feinberg.

The lack of review of leased school space is what happened at the Loral site.

Mary McKiney of the Concerned Residents Committee said DOE officials did not notify residents, community board members or elected officials that a new school was going to open on the former Loral Electronics site. In fact, the only way anyone knew about the project was when construction began at the site.

“They snuck it in. They’re disrespecting us,” she said.

The newly opened Soundview Academy highlights the dangers of review because the land beneath the school is contaminated. Elected officials, community leaders and residents knew for years that toxins such as arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury were in the soil after other would-be developers abandoned plans to build on the site. McKiney and others said that if DOE officials had come to them with their plans to build on the former Loral site they would have informed them about the toxic land.

SCA officials said that they performed adequate clean up of the site and the air inside the school is being monitored.

“The policy and process followed by the Department of Education and School Construction Authority to site schools in our city is woefully lacking and must be reformed. In particular, the siting of schools in properties acquired under long-term leasing agreements,” said Councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo (D-District 17).

The councilwoman is currently fighting DOE officials over the construction of four schools atop a former train yard where toxins have been detected in the soil.

“We all want our schools and our kids to be safe. But right now, communities are worried about the safety of some proposed school locations,” Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said in a statement. “Parents don’t have a say in the process. Even the City Council is shut out. That’s why the state should require a public process for assessing environmental conditions at leased school sites.”