Council also moved along the restoration project at the Schenck Farmstead site on Southfield Road by approving a contract with project architect Kyle Van Dyke through next year, and with the New Jersey Barn Company to disassemble and store the school house and winterize the site’s carriage house. The work also includes putting new doors and windows on the barn itself.##M:[more]##
The approvals came after residents of nearby Southfield Meadows raised concerns about the location of proposed lighting, bathrooms, and a parking lot, at the facility. They also expressed concerns about the location of an on-site trailer during the dismantling of the school house.
One of the residents, Zaitz Farm Road resident Linda Ladolcetta, said she was worried that putting spotlights on the property would disturb residences along Zaitz Farm Road and Stonewall Drive. She also suggested that bathrooms, lighting and a parking lot be located on the opposite side of the property to keep from disturbing residences. “I’m concerned about plans for an area that’s supposed to preserve the past,” she said.
Stonewall Drive resident Dave Campbell echoed the concerns. He recommended that “removal of the blue monster — I mean school house — and the location of the trailer for the dismantling of the school house be out of view so that we don’t have to continue to look at something we feel is unsightly,” in what was a reference to the blue tarp that has been placed over the school house on site to keep it from further deterioration.
The council had to approve the contracts so that the school house could be dismantled and work to the carriage house could be done before the winter. The school house will be dismantled and some pieces of it will be used to create a replica on site, although the exact location has yet to be determined.
Division of Land Use manager Sam Surtees assured the council that the contracts had nothing to do with the subject of the residents’ concerns. “All of the contracts I wrote up for tonight have nothing to do with any site design issue, relocation of the school house, parking lots or lights or anything.”
Instead, those issues will be discussed over the winter, when residents, members of the West Windsor Historical Society, township officials and council will be able to talk about plans for the site.
Council did have to figure out where the on-site trailer to store the materials from the school house would be located. Surtees said the recommendation was to put it behind the carriage house, because clearance is needed around the carriage house when work is being performed on it.
Councilman George Borek suggested looking into the costs associated with renting a truck that could be move the trailer to another part of the site, away from the view of the residents, when it’s not in use. “If it’s minimal, it might be a way of stopping the issue of the concerns of residents there by being able to move that to another part of the farmstead.”
