Des Plaines school's parking expansion draws criticism
No one wants a parking lot in their backyard, says Nick Chiropolis glancing toward the green space beyond the trees that line the edge of his property.
Chiropolis, who lives off Third Avenue abutting Cumberland Elementary School's grounds on the east side, is upset over District 62's plan to build roughly 25 additional parking spaces and a retention area where he says kids now play soccer and baseball, run or engage in other activities.
"To me, it's a public park in the summertime," Chiropolis said. "We fly kites."
Joggers and walkers also take advantage of the school's grounds, he added.
Chiropolis fears the district's plans also would destroy a native prairie at the northeastern edge of the school property that area residents helped cultivate 10 years ago.
"Open space is limited and to take away what little is left to me is a travesty," said Chiropolis, a Des Plaines alderman during the 1980s. "It's wiping out a big portion of the school grounds. The whole neighborhood is disturbed about this."
Chiropolis said area residents were not made aware of Cumberland School's expansion plans, which he says were buried within a $109 million master plan outlining upgrades to be done over the next three years in the district's 13 buildings.
Des Plaines Elementary District 62 Superintendent Jane Westerhold said while there was no public hearing on the Cumberland School improvements, residents have been involved in the master planning process all along.
"We have been working for over three years on a comprehensive master plan for all of our facilities that are really aging," she said. "We did a community engagement process. We had three community forums, and over 300 community members that participated in focus groups."
Former Cumberland parent Michelle Andersen, who lives in Chiropolis' neighborhood, led some of those community discussions to identify needed school improvements.
"Through the discussions that we had and as a parent, our primary concern was safety," she said. "Given the location of that school, there's just a lot of traffic coming in and out of that area. Certainly, parents who come with wheelchair-bound children would like to park closer to the school."
Right now, the only place for overflow parking is the nearby Chippewa pool parking lot.
District officials said while parking is tight at Cumberland, it's not the main reason for improvements.
The school, originally built in 1954, has a population of roughly 350 students and 100 staff members. It caters to a high number of special needs students requiring the services of numerous support and auxiliary staff.
Principal Leah Kimmelman said the main reason for extending the lot along the east side of the school is to allow school buses enough room to turn around, which they cannot do the way the site is presently laid out.
"Three sides of the building are bound by green space," Kimmelman said. "Our buses have no option but to come in off Golf Road and line up in the front of the building" where parents drop off and pick up their kids.
Kimmelman said giving up some of that green space to add 25 spaces to an existing 50-space parking lot won't hurt students because the area is not really used "for a specific purpose."
The retention area is required by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District because of a planned cafeteria addition to Chippewa school on the same campus. It will not destroy the prairie, which will be restored with new plantings, she said.
District officials have agreed to meet with Chiropolis and other neighborhood residents at 6:30 p.m. before the Jan. 19 school board meeting to discuss Cumberland School improvements.