Professional engineer Yulee Aronson, and architects Joseph Vallone and Patricia Chen offer these thoughts:
For the past 6 months we’ve followed the saga that is the proposed reconstruction of Long Lots Elementary School
During this time we’ve learned about this property, its history, stakeholders, and users.
Like many of us who have followed the public debate on various blog posts regarding these issues, we’ve observed the temperature rise of some of these comments to unacceptable levels.
We understand how emotional it may get for some with a lot at stake, but we should all remember that we are neighbors and need to treat each other with respect. We attribute some of the emotional outrage to the lack of awareness of the due process required to take a project like this from concept, through regulatory approvals to final design and construction.
Long Lots Elementary School. (Drone photo/Brandon Malin)
To begin, the first step in the regulatory approval is to follow 2022 Connecticut General Statutes, Title 8 – Zoning, Planning, Housing and Economic and Community Development, Chapter 126 – Municipal Planning Commissions, Section 8-24. – Municipal improvements. For short, this has been referred to as P&Z’s commission 8-24 review.
It is important to note that this being a school reconstruction project, the most important element to include in this application would be to show the new plan for the school and deal with the other elements later in the process. Considering that the school replacement would reduce the school’s footprint on the property, the approval could have been easily gotten on the first go-around in December of last year.
Unfortunately, in addition to the new school the proposal included construction of new athletic fields. Had the athletic fields remained the same size as the existing ones, adding them to the proposal wouldn’t be an issue. However, the proposal contained expansion of these fields, ignoring the earlier ruling by P&Z in 2010 and thus jeopardizing almost certain approval by P&Z.
Below is an excerpt from Eileen Lavigne Flug, assistant town attorney’s memo dated April 26, 2022″
On February 11, 2010 (modified June 10, 2010), the P&Z issued a Special Permit/Site Plan at the request of the Parks and Recreation Department for the expansion of the community gardens, stating that, “The Commission finds that the use of this site for the Community Garden, instead of the previously proposed use for athletic fields, remains in keeping with the 2007 POCD.”
With all the back and forth surrounding reconstruction of LLS, all stakeholders unanimously agree that the new school must be replaced as soon as possible. According to the initial schedule in the RFQ for feasibility study, the study should have been completed in August of last year and 8-24 application was soon to follow. Six months later and the December application withdrawn, the new application is yet to be resubmitted. Why?
As an independent group of professionals, we would like to offer our time and expertise to help our elected officials expedite the reconstruction process while working to ensure minimal disruption to the functionality of the site and the neighborhood. We understand that a similar offer was made by the chair of the Public Site & Building Committee. Let’s all work together and get it done for our kids!
