A group of residents in the North Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint are pushing back against the city's plan to build a brand new school within a few feet one of the most toxic sites in the state; the old NuHart Plastics building. 

Fifteen feet beneath the shuttered factory, a massive plume of toxic chemicals has drifted beyond the bounds of the building grounds and across the street to within just a few feet of the proposed school.

At a recent public meeting, Mike Schade, a Greenpoint resident and environmental activist with the North Brooklyn group Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, urged the local City Councilman, Stephen Levin, to go back to the drawing board.

"We know that this is a contaminated site, it's one of the most contaminated sites in New York City and New York State," he said. "Let's find a safer smarter site for our children. That's my view."

The plan to build there in the first place was approved by Levin back in 2013, as part of the rezoning for Greenpoint Landing, a massive 5,500 apartment complex on the neighborhood's northern boundary.

At the time, the developer agreed to wait to build the school until the site was cleaned up. But now, according to the state's Department Environmental Conservation, the toxins that have made their way across the street may never be removed, because of all the utilities there. 

And Councilman Levin said he now has qualms about the plan he himself approved. He lives around the corner and his toddler would just be old enough to attend the school by the time it gets built.

"That's a really open question for me... would I feel safe sending my daughter there? At this point i would still say I don't know."

Levin's office will continue taking public input and decide by the end of the year whether to move ahead with the current plan, or start from scratch, which would indefinitely delay the promise of a new school that's already several years behind.