Eyeing Heartland impact on school district

Heartland Town Square, a $4-billion development planned for Brentwood, would add 2,200 students to Long Island's largest school district. And as the project nears final approval from Islip Town and Suffolk County, its potential impact on the district remains an unresolved issue.

District officials, while generally supportive of the project, worry adding that many students would lead to overcrowded schools and would hurt the district's financial bottom line.

Heartland would transform 451 acres on the former grounds of Pilgrim State Hospital into a mini-city with 8,999 apartments, 3.4 million square feet of office space, and a million square feet of shops and restaurants.

Islip Town projected in 2009 that the school district would see a net gain in tax revenue of $2 million per year from the project. But a district-commissioned BOCES study the same year calculated that Brentwood would lose $1.5 million annually. Neither projection included the cost of new schools or additions to existing buildings, many near capacity.

Without new construction, additions or redistricting, Brentwood's North Elementary School would reach 165 percent capacity by the completion of Heartland's second phase, the study found. By then, roughly 6,000 apartments would be available. The Freshman Center would reach 109 percent capacity, and three other schools would need expansions of cafeterias, auditoriums and libraries, the study concluded. The first two phases would take at least 10 years to complete.

Heartland's developer, Gerald Wolkoff, has committed to setting aside between 9 and 15 acres for civic space that could be used for schools, a firehouse or police substation. However, he rejects the district's projections, arguing instead that his 8,999 rental apartments would attract single young professionals and empty-nesters -- not parents with schoolchildren.

Dave Genaway, Islip's town planner, said the district's concerns would be analyzed in more detail in a supplemental environmental review completed before the town approves the project's site plans, and that a remedy could include requiring Wolkoff to build a school once a certain number of students from Heartland have been registered.

So far, Wolkoff has not agreed to undertake or fund any school construction.

In a statement through a spokesman, Brentwood schools Superintendent Joseph Bond said the district needs to hear more details from the developer, and would consider asking him to build a new school.

"In theory, it sounds like a good idea," he said But he cautioned, "This project needs to be done right, not quickly."