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Jamaica Estates residents once again gathered to rally against and update the community about the St. John’s University dormitory being built in their neighborhood at a meeting at Abigail Adams Elementary School last Thursday.

In attendance were State Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose), the community’s champion for the cause, Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside), Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D-Little Neck) and more than 50 Jamaica Estates residents outraged by St. John’s pursuance of the project despite their concerns for the neighborhood.

A representative from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which oversees religious instruction at the school, was expected to show at the meeting but at the last minute did not attend.

The gathering was hosted by Philip Ross of the Concerned Citizens of Jamaica Estates, a community group that strongly opposes the dorm, who rallied the audience in support of getting St. John’s and the developer, H2H Residences, to abandon the project.

“I don’t care what H2H says or what St. John’s says, this is not a done deal,” Ross said. “This fight’s not over.”
Ross updated the community about dialogues neighbors have engaged in with St. John’s. The university has indicated to them that its solution to the feared parking crunch that will be caused by the 485-bed dorm going up at 172-14 Henley Rd. is to have students park their cars on campus and take the shuttle to and from the dorm. A majority of the community does not believe that is a feasible answer.

“As far as compromise,” Ross said, “we don’t want the dorm.”

Padavan informed the audience that, with funds secured by himself, Weprin and Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), an engineer has been hired to scrutinize the project in an effort to pinpoint a problem that would halt the construction.

“If that engineer comes up with some good stuff and the City doesn’t do anything about it and St. John’s doesn’t do anything about it, the next step is the Supreme Court of Queens County,” he said.

Padavan, himself a Jamaica Estates resident, detailed the various problems the community believes will plague the neighborhood because of the dorm, including scarce parking around Henley Road, rowdy students and a taxed sewer and water infrastructure.

“It’s not the student body at large (that’s the problem),” Padavan said. “It’s the problem that’s invariably going to occur with students at this site.”

Padavan is also calling for a traffic study to be conducted in the vicinity of the dorm site to see what impact the additional cars will have on the neighborhood.
Additionally, Padavan noted that St. John’s is undertaking a massive recruitment effort, and has already received around 35,000 applications this year.

“They want to get bigger and bigger and bigger,” he said. “Of course when you do that you have to provide housing.”

Both Avella and Weprin echoed Padavan’s sentiments, though Avella focused on the issue of community facilities negatively affecting neighborhoods throughout the City. Under current zoning laws, dormitories are designated as community facilities and receive a special bonus that allows them to be built larger than what their sites are zoned for.

“Community facilities are literally taking over neighborhood after neighborhood of every borough in the City,” he said. “The battle you’re fighting is a citywide battle.”

Weprin commended the audience on their perseverance in their battle against the dorm.

“This is what America is about, people speaking up and speaking their minds,” he said. “We’ve got to stick together.”