One Chase Manhattan Plaza. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Following downtown residents’ and the Community Board 1 (CB1) Urban Planning Committee’s demands for an explanation, three representatives of JP Morgan Chase met with the CB1 Quality of Life Committee yesterday evening to discuss the closure of One Chase Manhattan Plaza, home of the bank’s Financial District skyscraper and a privately owned major pedestrian thruway that has been fenced off since September.

Officially, the plaza was closed for a yet-to-be-seen construction project, but its timing prompted many citizens to suspect that the fencing was erected to ward off Occupy Wall Street protestors. Suspicion increased when various community remembers reported that they were explicitly told by the bank’s floor workers and security guards that the barrier was to prevent protests.

Committee member Ro Sheffe asked the representatives if any factors at all other than construction were behind the plaza’s closure. Chase’s Community Reinvestment Manager Karen McGuinness responded, “Absolutely not.”

The representatives explained that serious leaks in the plaza were identified that compromise the building’s infrastructure and safety. They said that the bank has spent recent months surveying the lot and using vector mapping to determine weak points. Results showed that the plaza’s membrane would be good for another 8-10 years, but multiple sections need repair, along with cleaning and resetting.

Asked how long repairs would take, one representative said about six months, weather permitting. Asked when repairs would begin, he responded, “soon — as soon as tomorrow, even,” but promised no specific date or deadline.

Asked if the plaza would reopen to the public after construction, another representative assured that it would. “We intend to operate the plaza as it has been traditionally operated,” he said.

After the representatives left the meeting, the Committee agreed to suspend a resolution to pressure the bank to reopen the plaza that the Urban Planning Committee had drafted when it met on July 5. For now, they decided, they would keep an eye on the plaza and wait to see if Chase follows through.

Many committee members remained skeptical about the bank’s story — a few had been told themselves by the bank’s staff that the fencing was in place to block protestors — but most were satisfied that the bank had made its intentions clear.

Sheffe, however, said that he was still unhappy. “I don’t want to argue with Chase because it’s their property,” he told New York Press. “But there’s a social imperative. [The plaza] is a valuable community resource. I want it open as soon as possible.”

“This is a very important matter,” said CB1 Chair Julie Menin, adding that the bill would lessen income inequality.

In their resolution, the board also pointed out that 15 cities have similar laws, including Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. According to a recent study on job growth in these cities from the Center for American Process, the higher wages translated to “efficiency gains for firms through reduced turnover. Increasing wages for the lowest-paid workers also stimulates local economies, as low income households typically spend more of their dollars locally.”

The Department of Education rolled out a new rezoning plan last week in the hope of settling the growing problem of overcrowded schools in Lower Manhattan and increasing waitlists for kindergartens.

But it looks like the DOE is the only one that is content with this new rezoning plan.

While the DOE looks to new zones as the answer, parents, elected officials and Community Board 1 see only one real resolution to this problem: Open more schools as the population increases.

“I have a lot of heartache because a lot of parents say they don’t want zoning to be a rebalancing tool,” said Michael Markowitz, council member of the Community Education Council for District 2, at the DOE’s Nov. 8 rezoning proposal meeting. At the meeting, the DOE’s Elizabeth Rose presented its latest proposal, outlining new zones for children in Tribeca, the West Village, Chinatown and the Financial District.

The rezoning will only go into effect if the CEC approves it within the next 45 days, though CEC and CB1 members think there is a possibility they may extend this time limit for the sake of pending amendments.

The latest proposal looks to relieve pressure on P.S. 234 on Greenwich Street, a school that grapples with waitlists yearly. It also creates a smaller zone for the Peck Slip School, set to open in 2015, and changes the zone of the newly opened Spruce Street School, P.S. 397.

According to the latest plan, a new zone for the upcoming school at the Foundling Hospital location in Chelsea will be instituted when it is opened in 2014, along with one for the Peck Slip School. Another major challenge was a split of Tribeca’s zones—under the proposal, children who live east of West Broadway and north of Murray Street will be zoned for P.S. 1, in Chinatown. These children are currently zoned for P.S. 234 and P.S. 397.

“We asked the DOE to leave the P.S. 234 zone the way it was and they decided to take the northeast piece and send it to P.S. 1, which doesn’t have room—and parents don’t want to go there anyway,” said Paul Hovitz, co-chair of CB1’s Youth Committee.

“This plan brings zones in line with what the community needs and what schools can provide, and addresses the feedback we heard during our last proposal,” said DOE spokesman Frank Thomas.

There was widespread criticism, especially from the CEC and CB1, about the Peck Slip School, which just received an increase of seats. Before children can enter the school itself at 1 Peck Slip, they are attending classes at its incubation site at the Tweed Courthouse.

Currently, Tweed offers room for two classrooms per grade, though when Peck Slip opens there will actually be four classrooms per grade. A shared request from the CEC and CB1 was made to increase the incubation classes to three per grade and tackle exactly what a few rooms on the bottom floor of Tweed are being used for.

“Even if it means putting staff in a trailer for a year, I want to see it happen,” said Shino Tanikawa, CEC president. “We gained another section in the school but the zone is smaller.”

Until Peck Slip is opened, students attending classes at Tweed will automatically be transferred into the specified zone for Peck Slip, if the plan is approved. But Rose argues that increasing the number of classes in Tweed doesn’t work—there’s not enough room and trailers cost too much money for a temporary expense.

The last time the DOE rezoned Lower Manhattan due to its increasing population was three years ago. While parents, community members and the CEC bickered with the DOE over the flaws of its plan, there was really only one solution they all agreed on: open more schools to relieve the pressure instead of shuffling kids around neighborhoods.

“Don’t split up communities like parts of northern Tribeca” said Julie Menin, president of CB1, at the CEC meeting. “Additional schools in the Community Board 1 district are needed for additional growth in areas.”

“They basically rezone to respond to new schools,” said Hovitz following the meeting. Currently, Hovitz and CB1 are coming up with amendments to the rezoning plan, although he is unsure if they will actually be used if requested by the CEC. The DOE has not responded on whether amendments to the proposal are possible.

Photo: The proposed rezoning from the Dept. of Education.