Op-Ed
The need for a new Town Hall
By York Selectmen Chairman David Marshall
The town of York has been talking about the need to replace or expand Town Hall for decades, and the Board of Selectmen is pleased that the voters last year supported initiating the process to take action. The current building is over-crowded and is not accessible or ADA compliant. It has no community meeting space, has very limited parking, is not expandable and we don't own the land it sits on. There seems to be general agreement that the current building no longer functions adequately, and recent evaluations in department performance have noted the negative effects of the inadequate workspace. Various options in and out of the village have been considered, but nothing so far has sufficed.Last year, a parcel of undeveloped land in the village became potentially available, and since our current Comprehensive Plan calls for keeping the Town Hall in the village, the board attempted and successfully negotiated an option from its two owners. After a favorable prequalification effort looking at soils, drainage, traffic and zoning, the package was offered to the voters.
The land vote and a second item asking for funds for a building design, passed by significant margins, 1074 and 882 votes respectively. Taking this as both approval and direction from the voters, the town purchased the land and the board created a building committee to work with architects and make a proposal for May 2007. Design goals included consolidating town functions where possible, respecting the historic nature of the town in its architecture and creating a functional center for the community. Since then, the Capital Planning Committee, consisting of members from all key boards, has named the Town Hall as a priority and placed it in the first year of its new five-year plan.
Over the past months, the committee and its architects, SMRT, have studied the town's office and service requirements, utilizing size and layout standards that are typical for the area in similar buildings. We looked at opportunities to include functions currently located off site, and while keeping an eye on the budget, we chose to create a quality building that will look like it has been there forever and that we will be proud of for generations to come.
Recently, the committee presented the plan to the town and the Board of Selectmen. Given the two centuries since building the last Town Hall, it is a much larger building, but it is appropriately sized. The walk-in basement, which is included in the calculated 23,500 square feet, contains a large meeting and function room and some much-needed storage space, neither of which has been available in the present building. The office portion of the building has a two-story main section and a one-story wing. By utilizing a two-tiered parking arrangement, both the basement level and the entire first floor offices, including the clerk, recreation, assessing, code and planning offices, are accessible without the need for stairs, elevators or long ramps.
In the new design, the code, planning, and clerk's offices are much improved, and will have enough office, meeting and file space to be conducive to serving customers and improving employee productivity. The general assistance office and the Recreation Department offices, are also included, the latter freeing up the Grant House for its originally intended purposes. Along with our attention to accessibility, ADA rules and newer building codes for new public buildings require space for an elevator, lobbies and multiple stairways, adding further to the total space requirement.
The highly visible building, to be set between the historic Coventry Hall and the Victorian that housed the former Ice House, is colonial in style, with white clapboards. Quality features like pillars have been added as is traditional for similar landmark municipal buildings. It will cost some money, but it is not extravagant. Building costs have continued to climb, and it is likely that building just 10 years ago could have yielded the same project for half the price. And since the trend continues, we feel that now is better than later.
The proposal also includes new storm water management, correcting the long-standing drainage problem in the village, and the creation of more village parking. The addition of a turn lane at the entrance to the building is also included, which when combined with the building relocation, could be expected to improve traffic conditions in town.
The Board of Selectmen and the Municipal Building Committee believe that this step is a reasonable decision point in a reasonable process. We are proud of this proposal and unanimously support it. As part of the process, the board and the committee will be providing more information over the next several weeks, and a public hearing will be held in April. We hope you will like it as much as we do, and we ask that you gather the facts and decide.
