Fairgrounds Scraps Expanded Construction Plan

Facing intervention from state regulators, fair officials scale back their ambitious Phase One plan, and focus on building new barns in time for this summer’s Morgan Horse Show. Meanwhile, fairground neighbors meet to find fixes for a failed city drainage system that is undermining them all.

 
NORTHAMPTON – Officials at the Three County Fairgrounds are scrapping an ambitious expansion scheme recently approved by the Conservation Commission and proceeding instead with a scaled-back plan that includes only the removal of deteriorated horse stalls and the building of three new large barns on the 55-acre site.

In a press release issued today, the Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden Agricultural Society, which owns the property and operates the annual Three County Fair, announced it has begun demolition of the more than 500 aged horse stalls. “Construction of the three new 100-stall barns will begin immediately,” the statement read.

The work is Phase One of what the press release says is a $36 million master plan expected to take 10 to 15 years to complete. Fair officials have said completing the master plan and adding a large arena and other permanent enclosed structures will cost about $42 million, create 500 new jobs and generate $25 million a year in new spin-off revenues for city businesses. (See “A New Vision for Northampton’s Three County Fairgrounds.”)

The construction work is funded by a $4 million state grant and from an appeal that raised $400,000 in private donations to get the project started, the press release stated.

The Story Behind the Press Release

What the press release does not say is that fairgrounds officials – whose proposal for the much-expanded Phase One development received final city approval last month – have pulled the plug on that ambitious plan and are returning to square one.

On Dec. 10, 2010, the city’s Conservation Commission OK’ed an “amended order of conditions” for Phase One of the development that not only included replacing the old barns — as approved in an earlier plan — but added a host of other undertakings: creating two new horse showing rings, laying a large new trap-rock gravel parking area, constructing a 20-foot-wide “promenade” traversing the property, and installing two large underground stormwater holding tanks to control site runoff.

The 4-0 vote that night came despite fierce criticism from some fairgrounds neighbors, and from a lawyer and an engineer hired by abutter Maria Tymoczko of Pomeroy Terrace, the former city councilor.

Tymoczko and other fairgrounds neighbors maintain that the stormwater system proposed for the site will exacerbate flooding in the area, making surrounding farm fields unfit for agriculture.

As proposed, stormwater from a series of underground detention basins would exit into the Williams Street Brook pipeline, which travels underground from the fairgrounds to the former Mill River bed off Hockanum Road, where it is pumped out to the Connecticut River. Public works officials say the brook pipeline is overloaded and in need of serious repair.

Berkshire Design Group Inc., of Northampton, the firm that engineered the stormwater system, says it would improve conditions in the neighborhood below Pomeroy Terrace because water will leave the fairgrounds more slowly after rainstorms than it does now.

“It’s not the fairground’s job to solve all of the city’s infrastructure problems,” Berkshire Design President Rick Klein told Northampton Media last month after the Conservation Commission approved the expanded Phase One conditions.

Within days of the commission’s OK, lawyer Michael Pill, who represents Tymoczko, filed an appeal with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). In his filing, Pill asked the DEP to issue a superceding order of conditions, could take the state agency up to three months to resolve and could have stopped all work on the fairgrounds project, pending a decision. (See “Fairgrounds Project Stalled.”)

The decision by fairgrounds officials to scale back the project came to light Monday when the city Planning Department posted the agenda for Thursday night’s meeting of the Conservation Commission. The one-line item reads: “Request to Withdraw Amended Order of Conditions Application, Three County Fairgrounds.”

Sarah LaValley, the city’s conservation and land-use planner, said Monday she suspects commissioners will honor the fairgrounds’ request to withdraw the amended plans and the attached order of conditions. The effect, LaValley said, will be to restore the order of conditions placed on the original Phase One plans, which called for tearing down the old stalls and building new barns, and nothing else.

(To see the original order of conditions, approved last April, click here.)

Teri Anderson, the city’s economic development director, agreed with LaValley’s assessment.

Late Monday, Three County Fair General Manager Bruce Shallcross told Northampton Media that the reason for the change of plans was neighborhood opposition. He also cited the need for the fairgrounds to meet the needs of the New England Morgan Horse Association, which holds a huge annual event here every summer and is the fair’s largest patron.

Shallcross said the fairgrounds plan was cut back because of opposition in the neighborhood (he did not mention Tymoczko’s appeal to the DEP.)

“We don’t want to have any disagreement,” said Shallcross. Rather than battle with abutters over “things that were objected to,” he said, fair officials want to focus on the original focus of Phase One: erecting new horse barns in time for the New England Morgan Horse Show, scheduled for July 24-30 this year.

“We have to get [that] done to maintain our horse show,” he said.

As for the other approved items that will be postponed – stormwater storage tanks, new riding rings, an expanded parking lot and an interior roadway – Shallcross said, “We’ll just go without them.”

Asked if the Morgan Horse Show folks were a key part of the decision-making, Shallcross replied, “We talk to them regularly, and they know exactly where we stand.”

The Morgan Horse Show’s Northampton Manager

Frederick Nava, manager of the New England Morgan Horse Show, said Tuesday he has been in constant touch with fair officials here and said the show’s most important need is new stalls. The existing stalls, he said, are totally unsuitable and need replacing.

“Right now, there isn’t a safe stall on the place,” Nava told Northampton Media, speaking from his office in Kingston, Mass.

Nava said he was puzzled by Tymoczko’s opposition to the project, saying that the amended Phase One plan would have reduced flooding.

Nonetheless, Nava said, the important thing was for the fair officials to get new barns in place before this summer. If they didn’t do that, he said, “we would have to go somewhere else.”

Nava, who said he’s been coming to Northampton for the horse shows since about 1952, said the current fairgrounds facility is in poor shape, but is still the best venue around. In other parts of the country, he said, municipalities pour a lot of money into such equine facilities; in Oklahoma City, for instance, he said a new hotel room tax generates funds that are pumped into a fairgrounds that he called one of the finest equine facilities in the country.

Asked about the fairgrounds’ master plan, Nava said it would totally transform the venue. “It will make it a great place,” he said. “I think it’s going to be an asset (to Northampton). They’re trying to improve things.”

According to Nava, he brings in from 600 to 900 horses for the show here each July. With five or more people affiliated with each horse, he said, that makes for a huge influx of dollars just from the Morgan Horse folks – not to mention all the visitors who come to see the horses.

He said the Morgan Horse participants take up all the hotel rooms and fill the city’s restaurants, which is a big boost for the economy. Having a new, bigger and better facility can only help, he said.

On the other hand, Nava said, the new barns will have only 300 stalls, about 250 fewer than are now on the property. To compensate, he said, the show will have to erect temporary tents, where portable horse stalls will be erected during the show.

Tymoczko’s Lawsuit

Last October, Tymoczko filed a lawsuit in state Land Court to force fair officials to apply for a special permit for their proposed redevelopment, which would trigger a more rigorous review process and more citizen involvement than the permitting process they’ve been following.

Tymoczko has also filed a Hampshire Superior Court lawsuit over emails between Anderson and other members of the Three County Fairgrounds Redevelopment Corporation, a private non-profit group formed to support the fairgrounds project.

Anderson, besides being a city official, is a member of the redevelopment corporation’s board of directors, and Shallcross is its treasurer.

The corporation’s members are a mix of fair personnel, Chamber of Commerce members and city representatives. Its board of directors is beefed up with some heavy hitters: the chamber’s executive director, Suzanne Beck, is the secretary; Planning Board member and former city councilor Marilyn Richards; Realtor and former city councilor Patrick Goggins; and former city restaurateur and chamber official Charles “Chuck” Bowles .

The lawsuit involving Anderson alleges that all her email correspondence with other board members should be public, since she is a city employee and has been using city resources in her role on the redevelopment corporation. The city has opposed that suit.

Last month, attorney Pill spoke against the amended fairgrounds plan, saying that the stormwater management system proposed for the site was doomed to fail. Although proponents said it would reduce peak stormwater flows into the failing Williams Street Brook, Pill and consulting engineer William Shaheen said project engineers miscalculated soil conditions and the floodplain’s water table level. They warned that the proposed solution could increase flooding onto neighbors’ property if it fails.

About the scaled-back redevelopment plans, Pill took no credit for forcing the hand of fair officials. He kept the focus on stormwater in the floodplain.

“There is no adequate drainage for this flood plain area,” Pill told Northampton Media. “The win-win solution for everyone is to address the need for off-site drainage. The key to that solution is funding.”

Pill characterized the Williams Street Brook as “a nuisance (both literally and in the legal sense of an actionable ‘private nuisance’) to the property owners through whose land the line runs.”

And as for the fairgrounds’ now-shelved plans to reduce peak stormwater levels by installing large underground holding talks, Pill said: “Reduction in peak flows would have occurred only if the on-site drainage proposal worked exactly as claimed, which was not likely.”

 

Fairgrounds Neighbors Take Action on Area Drainage

On Sunday night, a half-dozen fairground neighbors met at the Bridge Street home of Gerald Budgar, president of the Ward 3 Neighborhood Association and son of the late Ward 3 Councilor Leonard Budgar.

The meeting was called because Budgar and his neighbors – who largely want to see the fairgrounds facility improved – have also suffered because the Williams Street Brook constantly overflows, blowing out manhole covers, and causing sink holes and other problems.

The group, which studied city engineering maps of the brook, is preparing to press city officials to repair the underground pipes before the fair does any major work that would increase runoff.

The amended plans approved last month would have directed even more water into the brook, although project engineers said it would be a slower release than currently occurs, because it would take place over a longer time period.

Budgar said the neighborhood group’s goal is to contact every one of the two dozen or so property owners under whose land or homes the brook runs. Once they’ve gotten their anecdotal evidence together, Budgar said, they’ll light a fire under city officials.

“We want them to fix this, because there’s problems,” Budgar told Northampton Media. “It’s part of the infrastructure problems in the city [and] it’s time to deal with this.”

Pomeroy Terrace resident Paul Shoul, who attended Sunday’s organizational meeting, said that – while he supports modernizing the fairgrounds – he doesn’t want to see a bad flooding situation get worse.

Instead, Shoul said, the city needs to tackle area-wide flooding problems – before approving any major work at the fairgrounds.

“Ultimately, they should be looking at the entire project. . .and figuring out where to put that water,” said Shoul.

The DPW, the Northampton Airport and the Building Commissioner

Asked to describe the condition of the Williams Street Brook, Department of Public Works Director Edward “Ned” Huntley gave Northampton Media the following statement:

“DPW is reviewing a draft report that we commissioned on this drain line. The pipe varies in diameter from 18 inches to 36 inches. The drain system begins on Bridge Street and ends in the Old Mill River bed off Hockanum Road.  I believe that we have an easement for this system. Survey plans were developed for the system a number of years ago. The system has been videotaped the entire length and does need repairs and/or upgrades.”

Budgar said he’s learned that, while some of the brook’s underground pipes have been cleared of debris, there is one 680-foot section they can’t get to.

Meanwhile, both Budgar and Shoul – as well as others who have spoken about the drainage problem there – say they favor a plan discussed last month by Conservation Commission member Lisa Fusco, who also runs a business at the nearby Northampton Airport.

Fusco’s solution would be to pipe stormwater from the fairgrounds and other areas along Bridge Street north, under the airport and into the river.

“That is something we hope they will start looking at immediately,” Budgar told us.

At last month’s Conservation Commission meeting, Klein, an engineer, said the airport idea just might fly, but that the money isn’t there right now to fully study that option.

Meanwhile, fair officials are pushing ahead for their permits.

Building Commissioner Louis Hasbrouck said Tuesday that the fair submitted a demolition permit last week for the 18 existing horse barns, which he approved. They also sought a building permit for the three proposed barns, which he has OK’ed as far as the foundations. He’s still reviewing the plans for the barns themselves.

The dumpsters are in place on the fairgrounds for the demolition material, and along the outside fence near the old bars there is plastic sheeting and hay bales to prevent erosion during demolition. Shallcross’ press release says the work has already begun.

The changes are coming. Hold onto your horses.

© 2010 Northampton Media

David Reid can be reached at dreid@northamptonmedia.com