Town gauging Wentworth impact

SCARBOROUGH — A potential pinch in the pocketbook for Scarborough taxpayers is not the only impact to be felt from the new Wentworth Intermediate School, a $39.1 million construction project overwhelmingly approved by voters last November.

The town is now maneuvering to skirt a $218,000 fine it could draw for filling 1.35 acres of wetlands where the new 163,000-square-foot building will go. Construction slated to begin in August also means the end of the Bessworth Beginners Pre-School program, which will be shuttered when the building that houses it comes down to make way for the new school.

Meanwhile, parents picking up and dropping off students could find commuting a tricky proposition come 2014, when the Wentworth entrance on Route 114 becomes right turn only.

And finally, any new residents in Scarborough could end up footing an extra share of the construction bill if the ordinance committee elects to hike an existing impact fee when it takes up the topic later this month.

“We’ve spent a considerable about of time since the election getting a handle on the site,” said building committee Chairman Paul Koziell. “There’s been a lot of work at understanding from all different departments here in town just how to make this site work as best as it can.

“The overall goal has been to continue to have a fiscal and financially responsible project, while at the same time looking to deliver a school that serves the best interest of our children here in Scarborough, serves the best interests of our teachers and serves the best interests of our community in general,” said Koziell.

WETLANDS

In the eyes of the state Department of Environmental Protection, there are two ways to make up for destroying wetland habitat during development. One is to donate land for conservation. The other is to pay a fine.

“You do have that option, of just simply writing a check to the Army Corps of Engineers,” said Dan Cecil, an architect from the Portland office of Harriman Associates, which designed the new school.

Given the required size of that check, however, the town has elected to give up a parcel of land, although that option also has a steep price. According to Cecil, the state agency has a 15-to-1 rule, meaning that for every acre of wetlands destroyed, the developer (in this case, the town) must agree to preserve 15 acres.

“If you put other wetlands land in conservation so they can be never be developed in the future, they’ll accept that swap,” said Cecil.

Fortunately, the town has a suitable lot. In the so-called Wiley Parcel off Tenney Road, the town owns 42 acres obtained from its own land-or-fee demands on developers. Much of that property is dedicated to ball fields, walking trails and water retention basins for nearby homes. However, there are 20.5 acres of existing wetlands to be had. As luck would have it, that land abuts the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge and is already encumbered. Last year, the town signed a land management agreement with the refuge, setting aside 12 acres of that lot for 10 years as a preserve for the endangered New England cottontail rabbit.

“If we indeed offer a portion of this property,” wrote Town Manager Tom Hall in a Feb. 10 memo to town councilors, in which he reported a “positive” meeting with state and Army Corps officials, “I expect we will be required to deed the land to another entity, most likely to be combined into the Rachel Carson refuge.

According to Cecil, the Army Corps of Engineers has asked for “some additional documentation” related to the proposal, which should be submitted by the end of February.

“They will then deliberate down in Boston about whether or not they will accept this land as part of the mitigation,” Cecil said. “It might take them a month, or even two months, but we think the chances are excellent that they will.”

Ultimately, the Town Council will have to vote to hand over the land.

However, one person is hoping to create a slight wrinkle in the plan. School Board member John Cole said he hopes the building committee will refrain from filling in one small section of wetland, even if it can do so with a donation of other property.

On the southwest corner of the Bessworth building parking lot is an area “about half the size of tennis court,” Cole said, which would be perfect to retain as an outdoor laboratory for students to study the flora and fauna of wetland habitats.

Cole, who spent 2007-09 cataloging vernal pools in town while on the conservation commission, plans to visit the Bessworth pool this spring as part of an adult education class he is teaching. It would be nice, he said, if Wentworth students (grades 3-5) were to get that same opportunity.

“It’s not ideal,” said Cole, noting that the area is not a true vernal pool because it does not dry up in the summer, “but it definitely would give kids ready access to this type of environment, and the associated biology, without getting into a bus.”

Cole said he has yet to make a formal preservation request to either the school board or the building committee, although he has been working “behind he scenes” to engage individual members.

“I want people to not be sidetracked by this,” he said. “I’m just trying to build some awareness, if we can, to keep this one area from getting plowed over.

“I’m hoping that over time there will be some critical mass of interest to say, ‘Let’s do something with this,’ because, it’s like anything, if they fill it in, it’s a done deal and all that opportunity goes away. It never comes back.”

PRESCHOOL PROGRAM

The original plan – before nearly 10,000 square feet was cut in hopes of finding a palatable price tag for voters – was to provide space in the new Wentworth building for the child care programs run by Scarborough Community Services.

In some sense, that will still happen. The before- and after-school programs will move there this fall, but an administrative office will go to the Narragansett Building at Scarborough Middle School, which also will host child care during snow days, teacher workshop days and “vacation experience” camps.

However, the beginners pre-school did not make the cut, for lack of space.

SCHOOL ACCESS

Planning Board members have cast a dim eye on the parking plan presented by Cecil, which features access roads circulating traffic around a 248-car parking lot.

“It’s kind of a complicated,” admitted Cecil at a Jan. 30 Planning Board meeting, “but this is scheme No. 27 of all the ones we’ve looked at to try and address all of the potential parking problems.”

Town Planner Dan Bacon has pointed out that while the board can offer suggestions and comment, it cannot make demands of the building committee, due to the municipal nature of the project.

However, perhaps the biggest change will take place on Route 114. The main entrance for Wentworth will move to the one now used for the middle school. The current entrance will remain, but only right turns will be allowed, while a traffic island will block access to that drive to vehicles coming from the Oak Hill intersection at Route 1.

“It will be one-way out, one-way in,” explains Cecil. “What that will do is, it will prevent people from coming from the Hannaford lot, heading north for 100 feet and then making a sharp left-hand turn onto Wentworth, because it won’t be possible.

“It will greatly improve the safety of that particular intersection,” he said. “The new cross-campus road will allow people to get anywhere on site from Quentin Drive.”

IMPACT FEE

When the Town Council’s ordinance committee meets on Feb. 28, it will take up the issue of school impact fees.

“I want to review that ordinance again and see it go before council review, to see how they feel, because we’re buying a new school here,” said Councilor Richard Sullivan at the Jan. 31 committee meeting.

Scarborough has an impact fee that must be paid before the town will issue a residential building permit. Created in 2001, and based on a formula that takes into account the presumed financial load each new home creates on town services, the fee has garnered Scarborough as much as $446,000 (FY 2003) and as little as $119,170 (FY 2009).

“I don’t think we can have a specific Wentworth fee,” said Hall, “but the new debt may force us to reevaluate what the existing school impact fee should be.”

Adjusted for inflation each year since its incepting, the school impact fee now runs $4,130 for a single-family home, with senior housing units exempted.

A CLOSER LOOK

A timeline for reconstruction of Wentworth Intermediate School, as presented by project architect Harriman Associates:

June 2012 – Design specifications and architectural plans completed.

July 2012 – Project put out to bid.

August 2012 – General contractor selected. Bessworth child care building demolished. Modular classrooms now used for storage on northeast corner of building removed. Temporary playgrounds built on northeast and south ends of the old Wentworth building. Some hazardous materials removed.

September 2012 – Groundbreaking begins. Trees cleared on west side of old Wentworth

October 2012 – New access road built linking Municipal Drive to Scarborough Middle School.

December 2012 – Site of new Wentworth fully cleared. Foundation work begins, starting from western-most classroom wings. Work begins to reroute utilities to new building.

Fall 2013 – Shell in place for classroom wing of new Wentworth. Foundation laid for communal wing (gym, cafeteria, kitchen, administration, music and art). Drilling begins on geothermal well field.

June 2014 – New Wentworth “substantially complete.” Bus loop and playground built in front of the new building at its south side.

Summer 2014 – Equipment and materials moved from old building to new. Remaining modular classrooms removed from old building. Last of hazardous materials removed from old Wentworth and demolition begins.

September 2014 – Classes begin at new Wentworth. Once old Wentworth building is removed, work begins on parking lot on footprint of demolished building. Stormwater catch basins installed.

November 2014 – Driveways, sidewalks and landscaping finished. Project completed.