New Haven Independent

About three dozen neighbors met Thursday night to continue a fight against the school’s application to build the 16-foot-wide driveway. They arrived to find out the school had beaten them to the punch and had withdrawn its application to the City Plan Commission.

The 225-foot driveway would have led from the Stevenson Road cul-de-sac to a maintenance building on the campus. Karen Jacobs (pictured), the homeowner whose property would have abutted the proposed driveway, Thursday night told the group that Hopkins had pulled its permit application.

In a telephone interview Friday, Barbara Riley, the head of the school, said Hopkins had withdrawn the application “without prejudice” because the school wanted “to be good neighbors, and we are good neighbors.”

“This was not a big project and we felt” it was not worth pursuing “at this time,” she said. By withdrawing the application “without prejudice,” Riley said, the school could revisit the issue, but would not do so in the “foreseeable future.”

“This was an eye-opener for them,” 26th Ward Alderman Sergio Rodriguez said. “Their ears are open now, and we may be able to form a small group” to talk to school officials about mutual issues. LaShell Rountree, Rodriguez’s opponent in Tuesday’s 26th Ward primary, attended the meeting but didn’t speak publicly.

Jacobs, who had fought a years-long battle with the school on other issues, told the meeting she thought Hopkins was seeking peace with its neighbors. She said it is up to residents to respond in kind.

“We will be in this neighborhood for a long time,” she said. “I know you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. If we want them to be good neighbors, then the residents must also be good neighbors.”

“I want to give {Hopkins} my heartfelt thanks” for withdrawing their application, she said. Some of the neighbors are shown applauding when they heard about Hopkins’ apparent capitulation.

Some neighbors, however, continued to press their frustrations with Hopkins, including one about a strip of land on Kohary Drive that belongs to the school and is in need of maintenance. On Friday, Riley said there were no plans to build a driveway on that land.

Many of the people who attended Thursday’s meeting were not present at last week’s session at Hopkins. They agitated for more roads leading into the school from Forest Road rather than Stevenson.

Alan Felder, who was Rodriguez’s opponent in the 2007 26th Ward primary and had attended the earlier meeting, continued to agitate for more access to the campus form Forest Road.

Residents of Forest Road, who asked that their identity be withheld, didn’t like the idea. They said they have enough traffic on that state road and don’t need more.

Felder, pictured, told them he disagreed with their stand.

Michael Piscitelli, the city’s traffic director, attended the meeting representing the city. He said the neighbors had gotten the attention of City Hall. Forming a block watch could bring them into closer contact with people who could solve some of the problems they had expressed at the meeting, he suggested. People were seen signing lists so they could be contacted later.

“Those of us in the city, he heard you and we will work with you,” he told the group.