Housing Commission Minutes
December 6, 2005
Present: Rayna Caplan, BJ Scheff, Bryce Wolf, and Town Planner Mark Whitehead.
Sunnyside: Wolf reported on the meeting held last Friday with project architect Barry Buchinski to discuss the failure to obtain a satisfactory bid. Although many reasons were provided regarding possible cost increases, it seemed to boil down to the fact that the project was too small to be of much interest to a state-qualified contractor. We are apparently not the only town affected by this; an Amherst project (now being rebid) also came in at over $200 SF. It is not clear that going to stick-built construction would improve this scenario.
There are changes we can make that would bring down costs. These include simplifying the roofs by eliminating gables; reducing/eliminating trim and other design elements; and reducing the floor space in the main unit. This would require consultation with the Planning Board, at a minimum, and possibly new hearings. We would also eliminate the contract requirements for on-site trailer, phone hookup, and supervisor. We will look into our options further; in any case, there is no point in rebidding the project until after the holidays.
Sunnyside Add-on Apartment: Sam Rappaport introduced Leo DeSimone, Voc-Tech Coordinator, amd Chris Traganos, Carpentry Instructor, of Minuteman Regional High School. They are interested in building the apartment as a student project, and explained that the students have built five structures in the last seven years in Lexington and Wayland. These include single-family and two-family homes, and a daycare facility.
Once a foundation is in, the students do all the work, except for insulation, wallboard, plaster, tile, carpeting, and paint (which would be done by other contractor(s)). They described this as a small project that would fit nicely in their schedule. Assuming a foundation would be put in during the summer, they would expect to start in September. Materials would be obtained from a supplier under a separate contract for the project.
They described their method of working with Lexington, where housing has been built by the Rotary and then turned over to an organization which seemed similar to the Lincoln Foundation. This appeared to avoid much of the difficulties caused by state bidding requirements.
Asked about their inability to complete work on Lincoln’s Muster Barn for the Conservation Commission, they responded that recent changes in state rules regarding student work eligibility had pulled students off the project. They noted that this was a “fill-in” project of a different nature than the apartment would be. We agreed to investigate how we might break out the various parts of this project, such as the foundation, materials, and the non-school work. Also, how would the town part of the work be supervised? Minuteman asked that they be notified by January ’06 if we wished to proceed, so that they could plan accordingly.
The meeting adjourned at 8:45 a.m.
The next meeting will be December 20, 2005 at 7:30 a.m.
|