A developer’s plan to transform a former Consolidated Edison plant and nearby empty lots just south of the United Nations into thousands of apartments has some parents and community residents in a huff.

The proposed project, to be designed by famed architects Richard Meier and David Childs, includes seven residential and commercial towers reaching as high as 90 stories. But one thing the plan doesn’t include is a school.

“I think the developer is thinking that all the people he is going to be selling apartments to will be sending their children to private school, but we know that isn’t true,” the president of the East Midtown Coalition for Sensible Development, Edan Unterman, said.

The developer, Sheldon Solow, is proposing to build 5,000 apartments between 35th and 41st streets on First Avenue, which would bring an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 new residents.

Mr. Unterman and other local residents as well as elected officials are concerned that the two local public schools are already “stretched to the breaking point” and want the developer to address the problem.

“Instead of making our children’s educational needs someone else’s problem, we’re asking the developer to step up, do right by our kids, and put a school in one of their new buildings,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney said at a town hall meeting last month.

The Democratic congresswoman said the project would be “a nearly impossible burden for the area’s families, children and educational institutions – unless, of course, the ConEd redevelopment includes new schools.”

The two elementary schools that would serve the site are full. P.S. 116 on East 33rd Street is at about 100% capacity and P.S. 59 on E. 57th Street is at more than 110% of its capacity as of last school year, according to the Department of Education.

Community members are organizing to pack a Department of City Planning hearing on the project to demand that the required draft supplemental environmental impact statement takes into account the impact on local schools. The hearing is scheduled for March 28.

Because the project includes rezoning the area from commercial to residential, it must pass through the city’s land use review procedure.

The developer’s attorney, Sandy Lindenbaum, a major land use attorney in the city, said that a school was not currently part of the proposal. He said it would be “premature” to talk about the idea and that those issues would be addressed down the line.

“To my recollection, I’ve never been involved in a project where a developer has been required to build a school,” he said.

The chairman of the land use committee at Community Board 6, Edward Rubin, said the community was more concerned with other issues like affordable housing and creating a project in scale with the neighborhood.

“One of the issues is the possible need of a school – if you’re asking me if this is one of the most important issues, I would say no,” Mr. Rubin said.

In some projects across the city, developers have stepped up to make space available for a school. When developers transformed the former Smalls Paradise night club in Harlem into an International House of Pancakes they also made a deal to lease several stories to the Department of Education for the Thurgood Marshall Academy.

The director of Pratt Center for Community Development, Brad Lander, said that he could not think of any project where a developer was required to build a school.

“But I think it’s striking that this developer hasn’t learned the lessons of Hudson Yards, Greenpoint/Williamsburg, and West Chelsea – that broadly achieving neighborhood goals and meeting the public interest. … are essential to getting something approved in New York City of this scale,” Mr. Lander said.