After an uproar from some Neshaminy residents, the school board will extend an Act 34 hearing for a proposed 800-student elementary school at the Tawanka site in Lower Southampton.
Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
The state mandated hearing will take place Thursday and Friday evenings starting at 7 p.m. at the Theodore Kloos Auditorium at Neshaminy High School on Old Lincoln Highway in Middletown.
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School board member Stephen Pirritano announced this week that the meeting would be held over two days after residents raised concerns they would not be able to attend the Thursday meeting. The Thursday meeting date and time overlaps with several different school events in Neshaminy.
The hearing will give an overview of the plan and the cost from the district’s architects, bond advisers and administrators. The hearing is needed as part of the PlanCon process that could reimburse Neshaminy for some of the construction costs. The public will be able to read statements on the record. The record will then be sent to Harrisburg for review and filing.
District officials said last month that the legal team did not look at the school event calendars when picking the date for the hearing.
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The roughly $30-million school, which would be built off Brownsville Road, would feature a “house” design, according to preliminary plans. The building would be built back from Brownsville Road and have over 140 parking spaces and separate bus loop that could accommodate up to 19 buses, officials from Spiezle Architectural Group said.
Blocks of eight classrooms would be in each of the five triangle-shaped corridors in the proposed two-story building. Each section, which were referred to as both “houses” and “neighborhoods,” include eight regular classrooms and at least one special instruction room.
The board still has to vote to borrow up to $52 million to finance the new construction and a recently approved plan that would upgrade three Middletown schools.
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If you miss the two meeting dates, testimony can be submitted via writing until January 5, 2014. The comments can be submitted to Neshaminy School Board secretary Jennifer Burns, Administrative Offices at Maple Point Middle School, 2250 Langhorne-Yardley Road, Langhorne, PA 19047.
