school zones

From what I understand, school zones have been in place for a very long time and do not change easily or quickly. As with everything with the dept of ed - there is loads of red tape involved so I wouldn' be overly concerned about it.

That's true, but there is some new school construction planning/activity in some areas of the city (Lower Manhattan for example). Where new zoned elementary schools are created, there are usually changes to zoning.

The city is tragically behind in this regard though. In many areas where there has been huge population growth, the city is almost always dragged into planning, by the residents. They are almost never ahead of the problem.

So your stated fear is real one. The likelihood is that your local school will become overcrowded, and more people in your neighborhood will have a great excuse to send their kids to private school, and your property value will suffer (in a relative sense obviously).