For 3 years Julianne Mulvey attended meetings, made phone calls and wrote letters about the Long Lots Elementary School building project.
As the closest neighbor south of the Hyde Lane site — with a home abutting the former Community Gardens — she wanted to be sure that her rights as a property owner were considered.
She and her husband Fran made compromises. They also made sure the Long Lots School Building Committee included elements like buffer zones in the design.
The first phase of construction began last week. On the very first day, carefully drawn plans were disregarded.
The buffer area, with before-and-after photos.
Specifically, the couple said in a letter Monday to the Planning & Zoning Commission:
Representatives of the LLSBC assured us that clearance along our property line would occur at the greater of the flagged 25 feet from property lines or areas essential to the approved site plan. That is not what transpired.
The most egregious clearance has occurred between the main construction road and our front yard. We were explicitly assured by the LLSBC that this area would remain as undisturbed as possible, while still allowing access to the site.
While the construction road was positioned the maximum distance from our home, the demolition crew nonetheless destroyed an estimated 6,000 square feet of mature vegetation and growth beyond the construction road — our home’s primary buffer from the project site.
This area is not part of the construction plan or existing future plans for the site and did not need to be cleared for the project to proceed. The fact that the area lies outside the fence enclosure of the construction site further underscores this point: It did not need to be destroyed.
Despite our repeated and consistent concerns voiced over the past 3 years, the LLSBC proceeded in direct opposition to both its own assurances and the conditions of P&Z approval, which specifically required that our property be taken into consideration.
In addition, certain areas were cleared within as little as 15 feet of the property line — though a walkthrough with the LLSBC identified flags at 25 feet that were meant to preserve the buffer.
The effects on their quality of life — and property values — have been devastating.
“We have spoken repeatedly in the last 12 months about our fear that demolition would occur without a town representative on hand for us to speak with immediately,” the couple said in the letter to the P&Z.
On the first day of construction, there was no representative of the town on site — “only construction workers doing their job with understandably no authority to speak with us.”
After seeing the letter, “06880” reached out to Julianne Mulvey.
She said that on Monday, Susan Chipouras — project manager for the LLSBC — knocked on their door. (Mulvey noted that Chipouras had tried to contact them earlier.)
Chipouras first blamed a utility company. Mulvey said that they had removed only one tree.
Chipouras acknowledged the gravity of the clearance, and implied it was a third party mistake.
“It was the first day of a $100 million project,” Mulvey said. “And no one was there from the LLSBC to oversee the removal of this sensitive buffer area.
“On the first morning the project began, everything we had been promised was gone.”
(Photos and graphics courtesy of Fran and Julianne Mulvey)
Before last week, the Mulveys could not even see the school. Now they live adjacent to a construction zone.
And they can see everything.
“Our skepticism regarding the LLSBC’s promises to take ‘only what is necessary’ (a quote from chair Jay Keenan during a formal walkthrough with neighbors in August) regrettably, has been validated,” the Mulveys’ letter said.
“We no longer have confidence in the town’s ability to manage this project.”
Chipouras proposed plantings to minimize the effect of the removal.
But, Mulvey said, “the damage is done. It is on the LLSBC and the town to fix this mistake.”
