Mountable curbing between the fire station driveway and the Hildreth House driveway is the final obstacle to the Planning Board’s signing off on the Hildreth House site plan. The board met May 16 to discuss the four conditions it will include in its final decision, but it will need the approval of the Department of Public Works (DPW) director before it can include curbing as a condition. The Planning Board decided that adding curbing to separate the two driveways is necessary to prevent people from using the fire station driveway to enter or exit the Hildreth House driveway.
In a letter to the Planning Board, Fire Chief Rick Sicard said that while he did not think the curbing was necessary, he would not oppose it if fire vehicles could drive over it without being damaged. He also stipulated that no parking spaces for firefighters could be lost as a result of the curbing and that the DPW director should affirm that the curbing would not impede maintenance and snow removal.
The site plan has already gone out with the bid package, and if changes are made, the plan will need to be revised before construction begins. If revisions incur a cost, change orders must be issued, and money must be available either in the budget or from another source.
The ‘beehives’
One of the other three conditions is the removal of two parking spaces behind Town Hall so that the driveway can be sufficiently widened just east of the stone “beehives” near the Ayer Road end of the driveway. That condition was subject to the selectmen’s approval, and they unanimously approved the removal at their May 17 meeting. Another condition is the addition of sidewalks and crosswalks from the new parking area on the curve below Hildreth House. Both the sidewalks and the removal of the parking spaces were added to the site plan in an earlier revision before the request for bids went out, so no plan revision would be necessary for either condition.
The final condition is that the preferred movement of traffic exiting Hildreth House to Ayer Road is via the driveway on the north side of Town Hall. Going forward, Planning Board Chairwoman Kara Minar said she would like to discuss traffic flow in the entire Town Hall campus area with the interested parties, including the Town Center Transportation Committee, the selectmen, the town administrator, the fire chief, the Council on Aging, and representatives from the Unitarian Church. Selectman Ken Swanton, who attended the May 16 Planning Board meeting, responded that a traffic flow meeting would be a great idea, but he added that Town Hall campus traffic flow is an issue separate from the Hildreth House site plan.
The board will meet again on May 23 and hopes to have sufficient input from the DPW director to write the final decision on the site plan. General contractor bids on the Hildreth House project are due May 26.
