URGENT South Burlington Development Review Board (DRB) Public Hearing re 550 Park, Wheeler Parcel, May 4, 2021, 7 pm. Interactive Online Meeting (audio & video): https://www.gotomeet.me/SBCity/drb-2021-05-04. By Telephone (audio only):Phone Number: (571) 317-3112 Meeting Access Code: 995-993-909
This is a continuation of BlackRock Construction's Final Plat Application , the last stage of seeking approval to build a residential development at 550 Park Rd (# SD 21-06 ) . Come to show your concern!
BlackRock Construction proposes a development, 550 Park Road, of 32 homes (mostly duplexes, some single-family homes) packed into just 6.9 acres at the busy intersection of Park Rd. and Dorset St. --- an estimated 64 added cars minimum plus attendant traffic adding almost daily traffic. A coalition of residents from 3 HOA's plus others in the Vermont National Golf Course neighborhoods has spent months challenging this proposal, which we believe:
* Has proposed designs which have not reached a regulated goal of blending with the natural landscapes and with designs of the neighboring area * Is highly dense and visible * Usurps natural fields, trees, and grasses , nearly obliterating them by massive, months'- long drilling and blasting to remove extensive ledges this applicant only very recently mentioned * Poses new environmental threats * Now claims the project will save fewer existing trees than proposed earlier since keeping them would "interfere with the smooth operation of the blasting" (BlackRock quotation) * Creates traffic safety hazards for vehicles, bikers, and pedestrians on Park Road and * Inserts a new semicircular road with 2 new risky road cuts into Park that cross the existing Rec/bike path, with no discussion of possible prevention or amelioration ( e.g warning lights, added speed control measures, streetlights for dark sections, assessment of dangers of the lack of shoulders? ) * submitted a traffic study they commissioned which is incomplete, omits study of dangerous winter road conditions, and was located from a vantage point that omits crucial sections of Park Road itself.
Our coalition advocates the DRB's close attention to the above concerns, among others. We support the DRB's invocation for a technical consultant regarding the proposed removal of huge amounts of ledge. We also encourage the Board to immediately invoke an additional Traffic study to correct and supplement the issues raised from BlackRock's commissioned study (and hopefully, to study relocating the project's proposed Park Road use onto Dorset Street to a separate access/exit road from a slightly more eastern part of Dorset).
Do you recall the extreme noise of last summer's (2020) month-long drilling and jack-hammering all day long, all week long, for more than a month during COVID time, when BlackRock removed ledge from their nearby "Long Drive" development, off Golf Course Road? Protest postings on this Forum plus the intervention of the City Planner tried to move that process along, with the builder repeatedly making and then altering its own goals for completion.
This time, BlackRock recently broke the news that the Wheeler Parcel site contains huge amounts of ledge that they must remove, and they propose Blasting as the method. At a public hearing on April 6, 2021 , a BlackRock official and one from Maine Drilling and Blasting gave brief oral descriptions of the activities that would happen. Clearly they have known about this situation but chose not to present any details publicly, so this is startling and troubling to us. They refused to answer the Board's questions of how long the blasting process might take , save that for some hypothetical project like this, it might take up to two months duration Mon-Fri , 8 am-5 pm.
It includes hauling explosives from offsite; making multiple drilling holes approx. 12 feet deep all over the ledge which appears to include most of the site; inserting dynamite and fuse connections, then covering the holes with matting to reduce flying rocks; loud Warning signals; the actual blasts of approx. 2 per day, with loud noise and vibrations in the air and ground; and then loading the removed rock material into trucks to haul off site (in itself a loud and constant process). A rough idea of what this process may be like appears in the following YouTube video at "How to Blast for a Foundation" |from This Old House (Mar 20, 2021, 5 min.33 sec.) https://youtu.be/7Xz4RPR9P9o .
As you can see, crucial decisions are being made. Please participate in the May 4 virtual public hearing. Questions? Call Marla Keene at the DRB at 846-4106, or email mkeene@sburl.com. To talk with interested neighbors, you may contact me at KBLeFevre@gmail.com or John Bossange, 802-578-7468.
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