Several abutters of Whitefield’s new fire and rescue station were plainly unhappy last week.
At a special public comment meeting June 2, Gary Vigue and Shirley Warren shared concerns about lights and noise with the planning board and building committee.
Complaining about the proposed driveway located opposite the couple’s home, Vigue said, “It’s a poor setup.”
As the application review and approval proceeded, the planning board weighed and tried to accommodate such remarks. In Vigue and Warren’s case, it was noted that elevation differences will prevent fire truck headlights from shining in their windows.
March town meeting voters endorsed constructing the facility and the building committee, which developed the plan, submitted a detailed application last month to make sure the design complies with the local ordinance.
David Hayden, whose backyard and cattle pasture abut the station’s property line, mentioned loss of privacy and the impact of intrusive nighttime security lighting.
Designer Lynn Talacko and building committee chair Erik Ekholm gave assurances. No bright security lights are planned, just downward-aimed lighting; and trees offering protective screening could be planted.
Planning board member Beth Whitman recused herself from voting because her residence is diagonally across the road. Initially lights and noise topped her list of worries, but now, she said, her concerns also included traffic and 10 parking spaces out front. If the building is used for public meetings in addition to emergency personnel meetings and weekly training exercises, it might be better to put parking behind or on the north side of the 4800 square foot building, Whitman suggested.
Fire chief Tim Pellerin said when firefighters are called out, “the most you’ll have is five people parking cars because that’s all the truck can hold.” Other volunteers will drive directly to the scene of the fire or accident, he added.
Brad Bowden questioned the distance of the septic system from the well and was told a pretreatment system is being developed that will allow the unit to be placed closer than 300 feet.
Ending the public comment period and opening the board’s review, chair Christi Mitchell said, “Some effort must be put into a comprehensive landscape plan.” She noted the development ordinance standard requires landscaping. “It does not say ‘may’ provide landscaping,” she said.
No money for landscaping was included in the building package and cost estimate approved last March.
Talacko said moving the parking behind the building would be expensive because it would involve filling a swale. Also, firefighters would have to run about 200 feet uphill to reach the station.
A loop road proposed several years ago as part of a town center plan would better address traffic and parking issues but is not financially feasible.
Selectwoman Sue McKeen said there is no money in the budget but that someone has been asked on a volunteer basis to “undertake a landscaping scheme.” The cost of trees is not included, however.
Pleading for reason, planning board member Bob Bills pointed out the site (previously owned by the Greene family) had been a residence with at least 10 trips a day in and out of the driveway. Bills also noted the adjoining town office property is the wintertime scene of nighttime entries and exits by snowplows and sand trucks.
The design shows spaces for low-growing juniper shrubs at the driveway entrance.
The board eventually voted 4-0 that there was “a good faith effort to address the standard,” in member Jim Torbert’s words.
On noise, Bills pointed out, “The ordinance says you can be inconvenienced, just ‘not excessively.'” If late-night conversations or “party-level” noises in the station parking lot annoy neighbors, the problem can be addressed then, he added.
While debating vehicular access and whether to relocate parking spots behind the new building, Ekholm said it might be possible to connect that property and the town office with a walkway that would allow people using the station for meetings to park behind the town office. It would be a short walk from there to the station. The parking spaces in front of the station would be marked “firefighters only.”
The building panel’s suggestion that the proposal not be conditional to approval carried, and the board voted 4-0 that the standard was met.
The only sign at the site will be on the building itself and it won’t be illuminated.
Further addressing exterior lighting, Talacko said he didn’t favor motion sensitive lights. Lights to work by would be activated as needed, and the first firefighter to respond would be the one to flick on outside lights, he said.
With the station plan approved, Mitchell said the board would issue a findings-of-fact letter in two weeks.
