For 3 years, the proposed new Long Lots Elementary School project has lumbered along.
The building committee planned (and planned and planned). The Community Garden was removed, moved back, moved again. Athletic fields morphed from baseball to all-purpose, grass to artificial turf. 8-24 (town municipal use) permits were filed and refiled. Construction — originally hoped to begin last year — remains on the horizon.
Suddenly though, the lumbering pace will become a race.
Preliminary plans for the new Long Lots Elementary School.
Toni Simonetti — a gardener who is following the project with a close eye — notes that the deadline for a Connecticut funding grant application is June 30.
“The state can reimburse a town anywhere from 10-70% of the cost to replace a school with a new one. (Westport likely to be on the low end of that range.),” she reports.
She’s compiled a master list of meetings that must be held — and votes taken — before the funding application deadline, 34 days from now.
A recent schematic for Long Lots School.
For example, the Planning & Zoning Commission must hear testimony on a new 8-24 plan, along with a new special permit/site plan.
The Conservation Commission and Soil & Erosion Control Board must both grant approval for the area — which includes wetlands and a brook — in order for the state grant to be approved.
Financing approvals for the $98 project are still ahead, too.
Upcoming meetings include:
- June 3: Representative Town Meeting (RTM) first financial review (7:30 p.m., Town Hall).
- June 4: Conservation Commission and Flood & Erosion Control Board joint meeting (Zoom, 7 or 7:30 p.m.).
- June 5: Board of Finance first meeting (7:30 p.m., Town Hall).
- June 9: Planning & Zoning Commission, 8-24 vote and site plan/special permit approval (Virtual, 6 p.m.).
- June 10: RTM Finance Committee vote (7:30 p.m., Town Hall Room 201).
- June 11: Board of Finance vote (7:30 p.m., Town Hall).
- June 12: RTM expected final vote (TBD).
(Toni Simonetti’s full Substack on the Long Lots project can be read here. Hat tip: Kristin Schneeman.)