Superintendent Testifies as East Pikeland Elementary Hearing Continues

It will take at least one more night to get through testimony in the East Pikeland Elementary zoning hearing.

On Monday night, the zoning hearing board heard from Frank Tavani, traffic engineer for the Phoenixville Area School District project. Tavani faced cross-examination from the township special counsel, a lawyer representing a party of residents and the zoning board itself. For the first time, Dr. Alan Fegley, superintendent, testified in the hearing on Monday.

Absent from the meeting was attorney Mike Murray, and there were early indications that the client he represented, a land owner on Nulane Terrace, sold the property and therefore may no longer be an interested party.

The district hopes to expand East Pikeland Elementary School on its current 11.4-acre site located near the intersection of Hares Hill and Seven Stars roads in the township.

The expansion calls for demolishing a structure built in 1964 and preserving the 1930s structure. The school district is requesting four zoning variances and two special exceptions to move toward making the school expansion a reality.

Tavani’s testimony Monday dealt mainly with the methodology behind a bulky traffic study completed by the district. During Fegley's testimony, the board viewed photos of current school conditions and heard of what Fegley deemed “completely inadequate” conditions inside the school now.

Fegley rattled off deficiencies with the school during his testimony. These included the lack of air conditioning and the lack of electrical capacity to support air conditioning. That meant that near the end of the school year, East Pikeland students had to be transported to the high school to finish out a particularly hot day, Fegley explained.

“It was disruptive,” Fegley said.

He also noted water in the basement, issues with Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, a lack of toilet rooms, narrow hallways, a small gym and cafeteria and an insufficient library in the building as it currently sits.

“It is woefully inadequate for where we would like to take education today,” Fegley said.

The district entered a packet of photos of the school as exhibits. The lack of small group spaces is one issue Fegley noted, and one photo showed two groups of students in separate discussions in the same room, divided by cabinets. Another featured a gym class where the majority of the class was standing on the side watching due to a lack of space for activities.

“It’s challenging because you have students standing and watching vs. participating in an activity,” Fegley testified.

The school district still has more direct testimony questions for Fegley, and then he’ll be cross-examined by the zoning board, the special counsel and Michael Gill, the lawyer who represents more than a dozen nearby residents in a coalition opposing the expansion.

During Tavani’s cross-examination Monday evening, lawyers challenged his assertion that the intersection at Seven Stars and Hares Hill roads would face basically a one-step degradation in level of service according to the Highway Capacity Manual.

In traffic engineering, the levels of service work like a report card, with grades of A through F. For that particular intersection, the level of service would drop from a C to an E, according to the numbers in Tavani’s traffic study.

However, he noted during direct testimony that the intersection is at a low C, and that the E is a high E, so it would be more like a one-step drop.

“In point of fact, with the levels of service set forth by the Highway Safety Manual, it is indeed a two-step drop,” Andrew Bellwoar, who serves as the township’s special counsel, said, and Tavani agreed during cross-examination.

Both Bellwoar and Gill questioned Tavani on the effects of having a kindergarten program on the site, as well. The expansion plan includes moving all students from the district’s kindergarten center to East Pikeland for several years. Tavani admitted he should’ve included numbers on that in the traffic study, and the township's traffic engineer also suggested including the kindergarten use.

He did an analysis at the current kindergarten center in Phoenixville and found an overall lower trip generation rate than for an elementary school use, Tavani testified.

Following Fegley’s direct testimony and cross-examination tonight, the district has the option of calling more witnesses on its behalf. Likewise, the other groups involved may call witnesses to represent their interests.

If the district receives zoning relief, it will head to the planning commission for a recommendation as part of the land development and subdivision process. Then, if the plan is moved forward, it would go to the board of supervisors for approval.

The hearing resumes tonight, July 26, at the East Pikeland Township Building at 6 p.m.