Friday, August 26, 2016

Brockton New Heights charter school renovation still shut down

The ongoing saga continues (apologies for the lengthy quote, but wow!)
Casieri said that city officials were doing a routine inspection on Tuesday at the 1690 Main St. building when they discovered work that was going beyond the scope of permits that were given for the project.
“They had a permit for an HVAC and a back door, but that’s separate from the work going on there,” Casieri said. “They were fitting out for a school (on the first floor), putting up walls and doing sprinkler system with no permits. The wiring permits were not adequate for scope of job. We are waiting to see what they come up with.”
Casieri said another major problem is that the city's building department needs to be informed of the fire rating for walls that are being installed to separate the charter school from another section of the building being used for storage.
“When you separate one use from another there is a fire separation wall,” Casieri said. “That has to be adequate. There is going to be kids in the school in there.”
On top of that, the proposed charter school building has zoning issues for parking that will require a lengthy Brockton Planning Board process to solve, Casieri said. The building is in a “C2” classified zone, which by city ordinance doesn’t provide preset parking regulations, he said.
“There’s nothing in the parking table that speaks to a private school,” Casieri said. “In the zoning ordinance, it says that if the table doesn’t mention the use, it has to go to the Zoning Board for their approval. ... That’s not a speedy process. That’s a three-month ordeal.”
"There is going to be kids in the school there."

I can't help but wonder if there's a bit of a "the rules don't apply to us" in the thinking here. No doubt at some point the charter defenders will come out with some accusation of overreaching; point them to the fire code.

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