Vinson-Owen Project Moves Closer to Construction

The town continued to look for and receive public input regarding the future of the Vinson-Owen School.

The Educational Facilities Planning and Building Committee (EFPBC) met Monday night at Vinson-Owen, holding the second of four public hearings regarding the future of the elementary school.

The committee looked at five different options as to how to handle a new school building and where to build it. They decided, along with public input, that a new school will be built at the rear of the playing field, up against the slope of the hill. The committee decided that location gives the school the best chance to use all of its facilities.

"The options to put the building on the hill would have been an accessibility nightmare or detriment to students and staff with disabilities who would have traversed up that hill," said architect and planner Brooke Trivas. "While there may have been a little bit more play-space in the front, the building use was not as good."

It is the same diagram that the committee unveiled at its previous public hearing, but with some revisions after the public voiced some suggestions on how to improve the plans. The main addition would keep a student drop-off zone on Johnson Road, and provide a walkway to the front of the school.

"We think that this is the best utilization of the site," Trivas said. "It incorporates the most green-space, it has distinct play-areas for kindergarteners and the older students, it has a field in the front, we maintain the most trees, all things taken into consideration, this was the preferred option.

According to the architect, David Warner, there will be two play-areas in front of the school, separated by a lawn or a green-space. The pedestrian walkway will be the dividing point between the play-areas and the green-space in front of the school. Warner informed those in attendance that the school will have about 80 percent of its green-space that it currently has with this plan.

However, the lawn will not be large enough for a full soccer field, but according to EFPBC member Robert Deering, the current field is not the size of a full soccer field either. There will also be at least 64 parking spaces in the lot, up from the 34 that the school currently has.

The committee and the public also have a decision on what to make with the site of the old school. After it is torn down, there will be an opportunity to create any number of things that could benefit the Vinson-Owen community as it will add a large green-space for the school to benefit from.

The site could be turned into another play-area or converted into a staff parking lot. The area would be large enough, according to Werner, to have two full-length basketball courts, or as the chair of the Disability Access Commission, Jean Batty suggested, the area could be turned into a garden with an option for outdoor classes or used for solar panels. Or, the hill could be left as is.

"There have been further discussions to fully develop that area on the hill," Trivas said. "You could just make that a lovely hill, a green hill. That would be something if people had opinions about, they will be welcomed."

Traffic and the picking up and dropping off of students was another idea outlined in the draft. The town, thanks to the suggestion and work of engineer Douglas Prentis, has a parking lot that should be more organized in terms of the morning and afternoon rush.

There will be a place on Johnson for the three buses to drop off students and with the one-way flow of traffic once inside of Vinson-Owen, it should make for a smoother transition.

Members of the community did bring up the concern about the changing district lines and the possible increase of students. But Superintendent William McAlduff assured those in attendance that, in terms of parking, the possible 50 percent increase in population was added in. However, if there are more than the three buses dropping students off that would be something the school committee will have to look at when the time comes.

Regardless, the new building was well-received from parents and committee members. There will be two more public hearings to discuss the plan.  

"We've come a long way," McAlduff said. "It's coming together and these public hearings definitely help us out. We're going to look at the green-space in front of the building and we're going to continue to tweak the plans even more. We've gotten good ideas from the public, and it's a great opportunity to be a part of this project."