Portal
Home
Calendar
Gallery
FAQ
Search
Register
Log inPlans for Portland's new school concern neighbors
Plans for Portland's new school concern neighbors
by Outspoken on Sat Aug 16, 2008 6:12 am
Plans for Portland's new school concern neighbors
Residents cite the size of the project, fearing its effects on their neighborhood.
By ELBERT AULL
Staff Writer Portland Press Herald
A new elementary school on Ocean Avenue in Portland would eliminate more than two acres of woods and put a parking lot and trash bins a stone's throw from some of its neighbors.
The project, first aired at a Planning Board workshop this week, already is being criticized by neighbors who were surprised by its magnitude.
"This is it for us, this is home," said Sid Thorne, 54, of Walton Street. "Whatever changes they make in the neighborhood here, we're going to have to live with them."
Voters approved a $19.7 million bond for the elementary school in June, with all but $60,000 to be reimbursed by the state. The still-unnamed school will replace the century-old Nathan Clifford School on Falmouth Street.
Preliminary designs call for a 74,000-square-foot-school with a ball field and playground on a nearly 12-acre site between Walton and Mayland streets.
School officials said the 440-student school would draw most of its students from the Clifford, Longfellow, Presumpscot and Riverton elementary schools.
The school building would be more than three times as large as the defunct Baxter Elementary School, which it would replace on the site.
It would segregate vehicle traffic, with parents using Ocean Avenue to drop off and pick up their children while buses and staff members would enter from Walton Street.
Neighbors criticized the size of the project, which would remove about 2 acres of woods behind Baxter and put staff and visitor parking, as well as the school's trash bins, about 20 feet from their backyards on Walton Street.
They said the project also would eliminate a series of walking trails in a 7-acre wooded area behind the school.
Thorne, who often drives his all-terrain vehicle along the trails, said that replacing the woods with a parking lot would lower the value of the home he bought in 1979.
He said that having buses enter the site from his street would be a traffic nightmare in the winter, when sprawling snowbanks effectively make the stretch one-way.
Thorne's concerns are similar to those expressed by neighbors when talk of expansion at Cheverus High School surfaced at the turn of the century. The Jesuit school has built mounds as a buffer between itself and neighbors as it has expanded over the past few years.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=204955&ac=PHnws
Residents cite the size of the project, fearing its effects on their neighborhood.
By ELBERT AULL
Staff Writer Portland Press Herald
A new elementary school on Ocean Avenue in Portland would eliminate more than two acres of woods and put a parking lot and trash bins a stone's throw from some of its neighbors.
The project, first aired at a Planning Board workshop this week, already is being criticized by neighbors who were surprised by its magnitude.
"This is it for us, this is home," said Sid Thorne, 54, of Walton Street. "Whatever changes they make in the neighborhood here, we're going to have to live with them."
Voters approved a $19.7 million bond for the elementary school in June, with all but $60,000 to be reimbursed by the state. The still-unnamed school will replace the century-old Nathan Clifford School on Falmouth Street.
Preliminary designs call for a 74,000-square-foot-school with a ball field and playground on a nearly 12-acre site between Walton and Mayland streets.
School officials said the 440-student school would draw most of its students from the Clifford, Longfellow, Presumpscot and Riverton elementary schools.
The school building would be more than three times as large as the defunct Baxter Elementary School, which it would replace on the site.
It would segregate vehicle traffic, with parents using Ocean Avenue to drop off and pick up their children while buses and staff members would enter from Walton Street.
Neighbors criticized the size of the project, which would remove about 2 acres of woods behind Baxter and put staff and visitor parking, as well as the school's trash bins, about 20 feet from their backyards on Walton Street.
They said the project also would eliminate a series of walking trails in a 7-acre wooded area behind the school.
Thorne, who often drives his all-terrain vehicle along the trails, said that replacing the woods with a parking lot would lower the value of the home he bought in 1979.
He said that having buses enter the site from his street would be a traffic nightmare in the winter, when sprawling snowbanks effectively make the stretch one-way.
Thorne's concerns are similar to those expressed by neighbors when talk of expansion at Cheverus High School surfaced at the turn of the century. The Jesuit school has built mounds as a buffer between itself and neighbors as it has expanded over the past few years.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=204955&ac=PHnws
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
