School district awaits approval from Ross for McIntyre addition

The North Hills school board has awarded contracts totaling $2.43 million for an eight-room addition to McIntyre Elementary School, but the contracts are contingent upon approval of the project by Ross commissioners.

Construction manager Jon Thomas told board members last week that the Ross planning commission has recommended approval of the site plan, but the plan has not yet been before the township commissioners. The commissioners may consider the project on Monday.

The addition to the school on McIntyre Road is needed because of population growth in the northeast corner of the district.

Mr. Thomas said some neighbors expressed concern during the planning commission hearing about erosion around a manhole near the softball field at the school. A stream is on the property.

“They believe the erosion is solely attributable to the school district’s past developments,” he said.

But that is not true, he said. “A huge amount of development occurred upstream and acrossthestreet.…Theschool district is getting a lot of water dumped onto its site from other sources.”

Although the erosion is a pre-existing condition, Mr. Thomas said, the district is working with engineers to mitigate any future erosion. One plan is to put a larger pipe in the manhole to handle water more efficiently.

“The school district is the only recent developer along that road who has done anything to reverse those effects,” he said.

He added that the engineers hired for the project, Civil & Environmental Consultants Inc., are working with Gateway Engineers, the engineering firm for Ross, on a solution to the erosion.

“I have found that the planning commission and their engineers have been incredibly fair with their interpretation of the conditions and the work that is proposed, and I am confident that they will come up with a fair solution,” he said.

In other business, the board announced that its meeting on Thursday will be held at the A.W. Beattie Career Center.