Center School maintenance, repairs and upgrades

Center School repairs are needed now. Over the past 10 years, the School administration has invested minimally in maintenance and upgrades at Center, in hopes that the town would be approving a new $40M school this year. The $40M new school proposal resoundingly failed to pass, and our students will continue to use Center School for the foreseeable future if not longer.

Repairs such as connecting the new boiler to the heating ventilation system have been postponed because they are "difficult to complete in the 8-10 weeks available over a summer." But the alternative (having a new boiler but not having heat in some rooms) is not acceptable to many. Likewise, drafty windows can be repaired and replaced, with grant money available for energy efficient upgrades. Now that we know we will be in Center School for the foreseeable future if not longer, we have work to do to catch up on repairs, maintenance and upgrades that have been postponed over the past 10 years.

MetroWest Daily News article: Residents raise concerns, press for fixes at Hopkinton's Center School

Goal: Pedestrian Transportation Plan for Hopkinton

The MAPC Pedestrian Transportation Plan provides useful information for communities like Hopkinton interested in improving pedestrian connectivity.

Planning board closes public hearing on Golden Pond site plan review

Link to news coverage from MetroWest Daily News.

Golden Pond on agenda Monday night

Amongst other topics on the Hopkinton Planning Board agenda for Monday, September 13, is Golden Pond site plan public hearing.

Parking key factor in Library expansion

As the Hopkinton Public Library looks to expand, parking has emerged as a key factor in identifying a new site. To qualify for state funding, any proposed site must meet the state mandated number of parking spaces.

Which location would you choose for the library expansion?

Current location? - Work with the town to provide a multi-level parking garage across the streetbehind Town Hall to meet library parking requirements, and expand the existing building onto library owned property on Church Street.

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  • Center School? - If the town votes to fund a new multi-million dollar school and Center School closes, and is no longer used as a school, convert Center School into a community center that includes a new library. Convert the playground and field behind Center School into a parking lot for a new library.

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• Wherever it fits? - Buy any lot of suitable size to accommodate building, in the downtown, or anywhere in town.

Want what you got?- Some say we should learn to like what we have, a historic space in the center of town that is small but works for those who use it.

The mansions at 25 and 35 Main Street? - Work with current owners of these historic properties to explore purchasng the buildings for the library, and use the space behind the

mansions (the site of the once proposed Hopkinton Village Center) to accommodate the parking.

What ideas do you have for the library? Whatever your thoughts, mark your calendar for next Tuesday, September 9th, to learn more.

Public Forum on Library Expansion, Tuesday September 9th, 2010:

What are the library plans? What are your thoughts? Find out at a public forum next Tuesday, September 7th, 2010, at the Hopkinton Fire Station second floor meeting room.

McMansion era over?

In a survey referenced in this article, 30% say their ideal home size is less than 2,000 square feet, and less than 10% say their ideal home size is greater than 3,200 square feet.

Steps toward downtown revitalization - Conway School report for Hopkinton

Hopkinton now has a documented plan for downtown revitalization, incorporating ideas for economic development, walkability and street scape improvements, traffic calming measures, stormwater management, strategies for creating shared community spaces.

The plan was developed by students from the Conway Graduate School of Landscape Design, who led public input sessions and completed the plan as part of a professional planning curriculum at the school, under the direction of faculty advisors and Hopkinton's Downtown Revitalization Committee.

The professional quality document was created for less than $7,000, with funds contributed by Hopkinton Parks and Recreation Department, the Hopkinton Chamber of Commerce and local businesses. It will serve as an important reference point as the town moves to the next phase in downtown revitalization: 2010 town meeting approved $400,000 for development of a detailed design plan, which will advance Hopkinton toward state and federal grants to fund infrastructure improvements for the downtown.

Hopkinton to Participate in NStar Smart Grid Initiative

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) today announced it has approved the first of four smart grid pilot projects submitted for its review last yearunder the Green Communities Act.This approval gives the green light to NSTAR's proposal to deploy in-home smart grid technologies to approximately 2,800 residential customers in Newton, Hopkinton and Jamaica Plain.

W.Main Street between Lumber Street and Wood Street

Running is a great way to become familiar with your town or any place you visit. When I travel, I wake up early to go running, and the morning jog orients me to the new surroundings.

When I run here at home, I often end up checking out properties that are on the agenda of upcoming planning board meetings, or just noticing architecture, sidewalks, traffic, crosswalks and other things related to planning.

For example, over the past few years, every time I run from the center of town headed west down West Main Street, I notice how great the sidewalks are, but how they suddenly discontinue without explanation, only to pick up again further down. Specifically:

• Heading West on West Main Street, down the hill between Wood Street and Whalen Road, there is a modest but practical paved pedestrian path on both sides of the road, right up until Whalen Road, a residential neighborhood.
• After Whalen Road, continuing west on the South side of West Main Street, the sidewalk is discontinued from Whalen Road all the way to the small office building past Berry Acres.
• After Whalen Road, continuing west on the North side of West Main Street, the paved pedestrian path continues a little further but then also discontinues and picks up again only past the Golden Pond facility
• Moreover, for most of the section of West Main Street where the sidewalk or paved pedestrian path is missing, the road shoulder is also narrow and deteriorated, so getting from the place where the sidewalk ends to where it picks up again a quarter mile later is pretty treacherous; you wouldn't want your children walking it.

Since both Ice House Pond on the North, and Berry Acres on the South, include trails for walking, it has always struck me as odd that the sidewalk does not continue to the point where the walking trails begin. From a planning point of view, completing the missing pieces of sidewalk would offer several benefits:

• The residents of Whalen Road and West Main Street would have a way to walk from their residences to Berry Acres, to Ice House Pond, to each others' homes, or to the 77 W.Main shopping center;
• The businesses and their clientele along West Main Street could get from the sidewalk in front of the business to the sidewalk beyond;
• Pedestrians walking from anywhere in town on the sidewalks could actually access by foot the pedestrian uses at both Ice House Pond and Berry Acres;
• Walkers, runners and cyclists along the Main and West Main corridor would have a safer time (the paved paths and sidewalks between town center and Whalen Road set an expectation which is left unfulfilled between Whalen and the sidewalk's continuation after Berry Acres and Golden Pond).

The Town Master Plan calls for pedestrian connectivity all the way along West Main Street, so the missing sidewalk sections do not appear to be from lack of planning. In fact, after inquiring about this, I found out that long ago, before the DPW was DPW, making W.Main Street accessible for pedestrians was a priority and that's how we got at least the portion of pedestrian path that exists today.

I know I'll continue to notice this whenever I run down West Main Street, and I'll continue to advance pedestrian safety issues on the Planning Board. Wouldn't it be great too if runners, walkers, residents, and businesses in the area - and all of us - could make completion of that pedestrian connection a priority, fulfilling our master plan and connecting the various uses along West Main?

Hidden suburban castle draws attention of UK zoning officials

This is amusing, but has overtones relevant to property owners and zoning officials everywhere, even Hopkinton, MA:

UK man's castle won't be his home, court says

"Fidler, who has had disagreements with planning authorities before, anticipated that his request for permission to build the castle would be denied, so he tried to take advantage of a rule that allows a structure to be legalized if it has been lived in for four years."