WESTFIELD – City officials have submitted citizen comments and municipal responses to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA) as part of the Article 97 conversion of the Cross Street playground which will be incorporated into the campus of the proposed $36 million, 96,000-square-foot Ashley Street School project.
Two members of the City Council, Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell and At-large Councilor David A Flaherty, former Mayor Michael O’Connell, five Cross Street residents, a Holyoke resident, and two residents connected to the alternate playground site on the north side of Main Street all submitted comments and documents totaling 115 pages under the public comment requirement of the Article 97 conversion process.
The City has identified land, held trust, and referred to as the Wielgus property on Main Street, directly across from the intersection of Noble Street, as the alternative site for development of a playground with various athletic fields. The property has been used for agriculture, but is also located in a flood zone, which reduces development opportunities. The city has appraised the land for compensation for taking that property.
City officials are required to respond to each citizen comment as part of the Article 97 review process. The comment and response report will be reviewed by the EOEEA, and if accepted submitted to the National Park Service for its review. If the report is accepted by the federal agency, the city will be authorized to proceed with the playground conversion, clearing the way for the school construction project and the eventual creation of new playground facilities at the alternative location.
Principal Planner Jay Vinskey, Community Development Director Peter J. Miller Jr., and the Law Department supervisor Susan Phillips participated in the city’s review of the citizen comments and the responses submitted to the EOEEA.
“The majority of public comments appear to be centered on the dissatisfaction of the development of the school itself and less specifically related to any exceptions taken with this Environmental Assessment, namely the environmental effects of the conversion of a portion of the Cross Street Playground and its proposed replacement,” Vinskey stated in a cover letter address to Melissa Cryan, LWCF Stateside Coordinator at the EOEEA.
The Land, Water Conservation Fund Act is administered by Massachusetts on behalf of the National Park Service (NPS), a division of the Department of the Interior. The LWCF program provides matching grants to states and local governments for the acquisition and development of public outdoor recreation areas and facilities. The program is intended to create and maintain a nationwide legacy of high quality recreation areas and facilities and to stimulate non-federal investments in the protection and maintenance of recreation resources across the United States.
“Further, the LWCF manual specifically states that ‘resources beyond existing and proposed Section 6(f)3 areas are not subject to review unless required by other federal compliance programs (Chapter 4-8).'” Vinskey cited in the letter.
“However, some issues raised were considered relevant to this request and not previously or explicitly addressed in the EA (Environmental Assessment),” Vinskey stated. “These comments and responses to them are enclosed. However, there is nothing in these comments or their responses that is considered to warrant a revision of the Environmental Assessment.”
The City has contended that the Cross Street property was acquired through tax-takings and never identified through legislative action as park land, which has different restrictions and is required to be so designated.
The land was developed into ball fields by the Kiwanis Club which founded the Westfield Little League program. That playground was later improved through a federal grant used to enhance playgrounds across the city. City records do not specify how the playgrounds were improved.
O’Connell submitted a dozen pages of comment and public records arguing that the present elementary school enrollment does not justify construction of a 600-pupil school building, while Flaherty and Holyoke Resident Tom Smith, whose mother still owner Cross Street property, submitted nearly 80 pages of comments, maps and documents.
One Smith comment, that there is an underground stream in the playground adjacent to the former Ashley Street School property, a critical area since stormwater collected from the roofs and other impervious surfaces of the school will be discharged under ground in that same area, was rejected because no evidence of the stream was found during the site geotechnical and engineering investigations.
Other comments stated that the heavy traffic flow along Main Street separates the Cross Street neighborhood from both the recently renovated Chapman Playground and the proposed Wielgus Trust conversion property, while other comments express resident fear that the huge building will have an adverse impact on the vista along Ashley and Cross streets and that the building will not have adequate space for safely evacuating students during an emergency or for staff and parent parking.
The city anticipated that the state and federal review of the comments and responses, as well as the Environmental Assessment, will be completed in about a month.
