Like watching an approaching tsunami, Community Board 1 planners have been eyeing the population statistics and the birth rates in lower Manhattan and they know they're looking at a  disaster. Already, there are not enough public school seats for the district's kindergarten students. The Department of Education (DOE) has done nothing to mitigate the problem. In the next few years, the situation will get worse.

Diana Switaj, CB1's land use and planning director, made a presentation to New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's School Overcrowding Task Force on Feb. 27 that clearly spelled out what's going on. New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina wasn't there but members of the Department of Education staff were present.  

"They didn't respond specifically to this presentation," said Switaj. "They were mostly there to listen."

This is what they heard.  

Community District 1 is roughly the area south of Canal Street, with a few cutouts. It occupies 1.5 square miles.

According to the U.S. Census, the population of Community District 1 grew 77 percent between 2000 and 2010. The next highest population growth in New York City's 59 community districts was 18 percent. "We have grown much faster than any other community district in New York City and faster than the New York City average of 3.2 percent," said Switaj.   

Between 2000 and 2010, the population of children up to age 19 decreased by 7.3 percent in New York City as a whole. In that same period, it increased in Community District 1 by 83.6 percent. The actual numbers increased from 5,092 children to 9,353 children in that age range.

There was particularly large growth in the number of children up to the age of 9.

Much of that increase took place in Tribeca and the Financial District. In Tribeca, the increase in the number of children aged 0 to 4 was 196 percent compared with an increase in all of Manhattan of 7 percent. The number of children aged 5 to 9 increased 69 percent in that same period, compared with a decrease of 16.4 percent in all of Manhattan.

In the Financial District, the statistics were even more unsettling. There was an increase of 242 percent in the numbers of children age 0 to 4 and an increase of 158 percent in the numbers of children age 5 to 9.

At one time, Community Board 1 thought that the DOE was going to build 1,000 new school seats in lower Manhattan in the next few years. The DOE changed its mind. Now there will be one new school, not two. 

"A school has been authorized for Community District 1, but we don't know where it will go," said Switaj. "We do know that there's a gigantic need in the Financial District." She said that the new school might open in 2018 at the earliest. 

There are now around 400 kindergarten seats officially available in Community District 1, but all of the schools are operating over capacity. A school on Peck Slip in the South Street Seaport is supposed to open in 2015, which would increase the official capacity to 475 seats.

The kindergarten enrollment in Community District 1 schools in 2013 already equals what the capacity will be in 2015. In other words, when the Peck Slip school opens, it will already have simply filled present needs and not the needs that are known to await in that year. "We're already behind," said Switaj. "By the time that school opens, we'll already have a problem."

Some birth data just released by the Department of Health add to the worries.   

In 2010 and 2011, it seemed possible that the number of births in lower Manhattan was leveling off or might even be dropping. "Now we know that it's not," said Switaj. 

There were 1,191 live births in Community District 1 in 2012 compared with 1,087 in 2011 and 1,086 in 2010.

The compound growth rate for births in Community District 1 is 8.6 percent - which means that in absolute numbers there will be many more births each year than in the previous year.

Projecting forward, when there's enough room for parents to send their children to school, it can be assumed that 60 percent of the children born in any given year in Community District 1 will apply to enroll in kindergarten when they are five years old, Switaj explained. This is known as the "birth yield rate."

"The birth yield drops when people are forced away because there's not enough room," she said.

Using the birth yield rate, there would be 778 children who needed kindergarten seats in Community District 1 by 2018, when a new school is projected to open. The capacity in 2018 will be 550 seats. So there is a shortage just in that year of 228 kindergarten seats.

"People are going to move away if there's no room for them in the schools," said Switaj. "It's very frustrating to have a very clear picture of what's happening, and to know that whatever the Department of Education is allotting us is so far behind."

 - Terese Loeb Kreuzer