Dorm, Science Center Proposed for Education Center

The Milky Way Education Center has brought another application before the Planning Board.

The school brought a controversial application to construct a new education campus on the BAE Systems property on Totowa Road earlier this year. This newest application involves exceptions for parking and lighting.

The application is on the agenda for the board’s meeting on Monday.

The Board unanimously approved the Pioneer Academy of Science’s application to relocate to 165,000-square-foot building at 164 Totowa Road and construct dormitories on the second floor. The Milky Way Education Center, a non-profit, runs the academy. The school is currently located in a 19,000-square-foot building in Clifton.

The school wants to more than triple its enrollment of 177 students to about 600.

About 300 boys are expected to live in the more than 100 dorm rooms once constructed.

The town council approved an ordinance in February prohibiting dormitories being built in town except for St. Joseph’s Wayne Hospital and William Paterson University in an effort to prevent the school from re-locating. A Superior Court judge ruled in May that the school is not subject to the ban.

The ordinance was approved six days after the school filed its application.

Administrators previously said they would want to relocate the school to the new campus by September 2013 and have the new dormitory open by September 2014.

The meeting will be held in the council chamber beginning at 7:30 p.m. and broadcast on cable channel 77 and online.

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