Expansion plans prove controversial for SAR Academy

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Correction appended. 

A discussion of Salanter Akiba Riverdale (SAR) Academy’s controversial plan to expand its building on West 254th Street was standing room only on Monday night.

A crowd of SAR parents and children attended Community Board (CB) 8’s Land Use Committee at the Conservative Synagogue to voice their support for plans to build a new classroom, a second gymnasium and a connecting hallway at the school.

The meeting also drew disgruntled neighbors of SAR Academy, many of whom are opposed to the proposed 13,329-square-foot expansion.

As part of the City Planning Commission’s (CPC) Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, community boards must hold public hearings and submit their own recommendations to CPC and the borough president within 60 days of receiving a group’s application to alter an existing site. 

But given the contentious nature of SAR’s application, the Land Use committee pushed its vote to Monday, Feb. 9. 

“I’m appealing to you for the kids of SAR,” Principal Binyamin Krauss, a rabbi, told committee and meeting attendees.

Rabbi Krauss cited a need to accommodate the school’s existing population as the impetus behind the expansion. Since the school moved into the building on West 254th Street, enrollment has doubled, from 450 in 1974 to 905 this year. He stressed there are no plans to increase enrollment beyond that.

Security concerns

The school also drew its plans to address security at the Modern Orthodox Jewish elementary and middle school. In an emergency, the addition would act as a lockdown location for the school’s students. 

“We’re living in a very different world. We’ve increased security,” said SAR President Jack Bendheim. “That’s why we’re rushing to do this and have it in place by September.”

Those reasons were not enough to mollify critics of the plan, whose concerns included a perceived lack of transparency on the part of SAR, the disturbance of neighboring property and tree removal on the site.

No master plan

SAR Academy, Land Use Committee, Charles Moerdler, Binyamin Krauss, Community Board 8, Maya Rajamani
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