Springfield debates new high school plans
SPRINGFIELD » It was a packed house last week as the township zoning board took the wraps off the biggest story in town - the new and improved plans for the school district’s new $130 million new high school. Not surprisingly, many of those in attendance wanted to talk about a persistent issue surrounding the school: How it will affect traffic.
The township zoning hearing board held the second session on the school district’s application for the high school master plan. While the district has concluded its case, and public comment was taken, the board decided to continue the meeting until Oct. 26. Chairman Craig Gardner strongly indicated the board will then be ready to render a decision on all zoning relief requests.
The room was filled with approximately five dozen individuals, fairly split between residents and those connected to the business officially, including commissioners and school board members.
The deferral of a decision after closure of a hearing is fairly standard for the board. More so in a project of this importance and size, Gardner said. In addition, the district presented two revisions to the plan that zoners had not seen. One other factor was that the board wanted to see the final agreement between the school district and St. Francis Parish regarding a variety of accommodations to traffic circulations and dimensional boundaries between the properties.
“There is an awful lot involved in this plan and an awful lot of data to go through,” said Gardner, replying directly to Wyndmoor Road resident Jim Eberson, who questioned why the board chose to continue the hearing.
The project team consisted of attorneys Don Petrosa and Mark Kaplan, architect David Schrader, traffic engineer Eric Ostimchuk and engineer Christopher Jensen. Attorney Vincent Mancini was present representing St. Francis.
Petrosa said meetings with the district and township officials resulted in two alterations to the plan. Responding to a request by the township, sections along South Rolling Road would include on street parking and three sections of “drop off” areas that are not in the travel lanes. The second responded to fire and police needs and would create emergency access from Leamy Avenue throughout the parking fields and back to the athletic stadium.
The changes added 29 parking spaces overall, which now total 400, exceeding the zoning requirement. Neither change prompted additional relief needed.
“We came up with a plan all were happy with and made those two changes since the July (zoning) meeting,” said Petrosa.
These issues constituted the substance of the district’s case. Schrader, Jensen and Ostimchuk all added details to the changes, but were engaged by the board with specific questions. Zoner George Trolio got assurance from Schrader that the 46-foot parapet was the highest point of the building. Trolio was interested in aesthetics and contents of the district’s maintenance building near the Orchard Road/Leamy Avenue corner, and also discussed the landscape buffer with St. Francis and reviewed conceptual images.
Proposed fencing on Rolling Road was a concern of board member Michael Miele, who was told the material would be later determined as a detail during the land development process.
The main concerns of zoners, as well as 10 members of the public who spoke, were overwhelmingly parking and traffic, traffic and parking, and more traffic.
Gardner asked how the traffic volume was calculated, hearing from Ostimchuk of the standard professional practice of counts with estimated growth of the school and community built in. Gardner, in turn, said he was worried about special events such as football games and graduation.
Orchard Road resident Patricia Friel began public comments with observations about congestion on Saxer during early peak hours, citing school drop off, mass at St. Francis and the trolley. Ostimchuk said all those factors were evaluated. The plan’s goal was to improve morning circulation and relieve the school queue off of public roads by bringing much of the traffic into the campus.
Kevin Dion said the plans changes discussed earlier would “overburden Rolling Road” and have no choice other than close it to regular traffic. The district had fielded that concept to the township which would not support the move.
“It’s going to be a nightmare. And the fence looks ugly,” Dion said.
Norman Douglas said he’d lived at the corner of Wyndmoor and Thornridge roads for 56 years and the traffic impact had worsened in the last few years. He believed the district and project team “had not done enough research and put enough thought” into the traffic issue.
Ed Johnson had an issue with the district including spaces on Leamy Avenue in the parking count as it was a public street used by residents.
Nick DeLuca charged the project team with better understanding the needs of handicapped persons to get into the school building. He strongly indicated he thought the plans showed inadequacies. Petrosa said that was another detail that would be worked out in land development.
School Board Director Doug Carney did not testify, but commented at the hearing closure on the traffic situation that the construction of a new high school does not fundamentally change volume that is already present.
Providing the final public comment, South Rolling Road resident Andrew Henry correctly observed that most of the issues discussed were not specific to the zoning request, which concern height and dimensional relief. Rightly so, Henry said many concerns could be raised in planning.
That opportunity was less than a week away. The district is scheduled to appear at the township planning meeting Oct. 5 with, as Kaplan said, “a great deal of pressure to move forward.”