Karen Jacobs has collected dozens of balls launched into her yard from the Hopkins School batting cage next door. Now she and her neighbors feel they’ve struck out altogether with the school.
Jacobs and more than a score of neighbors Wednesday night showed up to a meeting to weigh in on the private school’s plan to build a 225-foot-long access road to its new maintenance building from a Stevenson Road cul-de-sac. They quickly found out they had no say at all in the matter.
Jacobs is pictured pointing to the land where the road will be built.
The school had the right to build the 16-foot-wide access road on its property, Thomas Talbot, assistant director of the City Plan Department, told the tense Wednesday night gathering at the school’s commons. The City Plan Commission plans to consider the project at its Sept. 16 meeting but has made no provision for the public to speak because the school has the absolute right to build on its property, Talbot said.
City Plan planner Joy Ford said the city had urged Hopkins to conduct the meeting before the Sept. 16 meeting.
City Plan’s function was strictly to assure that the site plan was in order, Talbot told the group of neighbors from Stevenson and Whittier roads and Kohary Drive in Westville, blocks from the Yale Golf Course.
That bit of news didn’t make the neighbors happy. If they would not have the chance to tell city officials about their displeasure, they certainly could let Hopkins Head of School Barbara Riley know of it.
Riley earlier told a reporter she expected the meeting to be a calm session in which she, Hopkins Chief Financial Officer David Baxter and Assistant Head John Roberts would explain Hopkins’ plans to put up a gate-controlled driveway where a dozen maintenance workers could park their cars and provide access closer to sports fields for emergency vehicles. Then they would take a few questions from neighbors in a session that would take about an hour.
It didn’t turn out that way.
Roberts (pictured) began to explain that on most days, the driveway, protected by a gate controlled by a passkey or passcode, would allow parking for a dozen maintenance workers so they wouldn’t have to drive across campus on roads frequented by students and faculty at the prestigious prep school.
From time to time, the road may be used for delivery of “maintenance and construction-related material, landscape material, fuel and rental equipment,” according to the school’s application to City Plan.
“The key words are very limited access,” Riley said when she could get a word in.
But before Roberts could get far into his presentation, the neighbors launched a fusillade of questions and concerns. Some dealt directly with the driveway’s construction. Many others revived past complaints about interactions with Hopkins. Riley and her two assistants looked shell-shocked as neighbor after neighbor poured out their frustrations.
Jacobs, the Stevenson Road resident whose property is flanked on two sides by Hopkins’ land, shared complaints from past run-ins with Hopkins when it built the ballfields, batting cages, and running path.
She said she has she suffered through run-off, mud, lack of water for hours due to Hopkins work nearby, as well as baseballs and softballs smashing into her car and house. She claimed that Hopkins officials told her they didn’t have time to deal with her.
“They had a patronizing, condescending tone with me,” she said.
Earlier in the day she displayed a tub (pictured at the top of the story) containing dozens of baseballs and softballs. She said that was only a fraction of those that wing her way; she throws many of them back onto the Hopkins field that abuts her backyard.
“I believe we have been accessible,” said Riley (pictured). There is a “difference between perception and reality.”
Not all questioners were hostile; about a third said Hopkins has been a good neighbor.
Other issues raised included traffic on Stevenson Road and Kohary Drive, which is a feeder street into Stevenson; the safety of residents at a group home next to the proposed driveway; safety of children; and the sanctity of the cul-de-sac and the patrols of security vehicles, with flashing lights, on the perimeter of Hopkins’ land.
“I should think you would be grateful that we are patrolling,” Riley told the residents. Nobody looked grateful.
A number of questions asked by neighbors had to do with any future construction plans that might increase use of the driveway. Riley insisted the school has none. “These are flights of imagination beyond anything planned or contemplated,” she said. Nonetheless, the question was asked again and again in different guises.
More than a few residents said it seemed that Hopkins was ensuring the safety of its students and faculty by endangering their children, a charge that Riley denied.
“I wish they could meet these 12 people” who would park their cars off the new driveway, Riley said after the meeting. People who drive recklessly and would endanger children “are not the people that we would hire,” she said.
Nevertheless, neighbors pressed for Hopkins to build a road from Forest Road to access the campus.
Westville Alderman Sergio Rodriguez tried to referee that session. He urged the neighbors to allow Riley to answer some of the questions thrown at her, but added that many had concerns they felt were legitimate.
“There is a feeling you are not responsive to what is going on,” he told Riley. “It sounds like and feels like it’s going to happen no matter what the people will do.” Rodriguez said it should be up to the Board of Aldermen to make sure that people have a say in what happens in their neighborhood; he said the board dropped the ball in this instance.
Talbot said the city traffic department would have to weigh in on the access road, but predicted it wouldn’t provide relief there for the neighbors. Nevertheless, he invited residents to call him Thursday on the traffic issue.
Steven Lawrence, a young homeowner on Stevenson Road, said he was not satisfied with the meeting or its outcome.
“We really didn’t have any say in this,” he said. “Good but large institutions like Hopkins are not necessarily good neighbors.”