Seton Hill Neighborhood Association BGE Meeting

On Sunday 29 July 2007 there will be an open house to present the plans for the BGE buildings in Seton Hill. The open house will take place in the building in St. Mary Park. The City Planning Commisson mandated that we and BGE must come up with an acceptable design by Thursday 8 August 2007. We need to have our answers in to BGE by Monday 30 July 2007.

My notes are as follow:

We have to have our response back by Monday.

Walt, Architect, Department of Planning: We will have until 9 August to have a design acceptable by both parties. BGE came up with three options. Anyone is welcome to come to the hearing. It is Thursday 9 August at14:00. We are after all the historical landmark organizations.

The sample brick is Colonial Red. BGE still has to maintain the perimeter of the wall. They are doing a reconstruction of the wall.
They are also removing the planters on the corners.

Kenneth Michel of Whitman, Requardt & Associates, LLP (WR&A) discussed the options. Option 3 is pretty much the starting point. They flattened up the pilasters. The sidewalk is a 12-foot sidewalk. They want to have the trees closer to the walls instead of on the out side of the sidewalks. The planters are at grade.

The second option increases the height of the pilasters and uses some fo the design element from the first design. The wall itself is 16 feet eight inches. The fence can be two feet. The arches are recessed. The original pilasters were two feet wide. These are six feet. We are looking at a new foundation also.

The existing walls were built in 1970. They are standing but settling.
There are four feet in caissons. They support the brick pilasters.
There is a concrete beam that runs below ground that supports these walls. To replace the wall, they have to replace the foundation. They are replacing with 30-inch caissons which go down 30 feet. They are going to avoid taking out as much of the current caissons that they can.
There are some things wrong with the wall. Moisture has gotten into the walls and the steel is rusting which causes it to expand.

On Eutaw Street there is a long metal panel. You don’t see it. It is there for quick access. It was not the intent of BGE to replace the entire wall. At one time we could not come to an agreement on which guidelines we were using. There were concessions made by the City to incorporate Mount Vernon standards at the request of Seton Hill.

Now we are looking at doing the whole wall. We have a 12-foot sidewalk.
We need to maintain six feet. We don’t want anything where people can hide. The pilasters will not be that great a kick-out. The pilaster kicking out is a function of cost. We are looking at a maximum of 16 inches as an offset. The wall is at the right of way line right now.

Right now we have no pedestrian friendly light. We are putting in commercial and we will brighten it up as much as we can.

BGE does require all three entrance ways. There will be a 12x20 building inside the wall on the McCullough Street (NW) side. At Paca and Monument streets there is a gate. The wall will be moved to hide this gate. The City Planning Department is recommending a straight wall at Eutaw and Monument. The trees there are old and dense and they need to be replaced since they will continue to damage the sidewalk and street. They are talking about street trees at the corners and tree closer to the wall in the middle of the black. The idea is to break it up a little so that it is not so monotonous.

The City owns an easement on Orchard Street property. They will make it users friendly and pedestrian friendly.

I did not get ID information for the gentleman in the gray suit and red tie. I think that he works for BGE. He said that BGE is providing 30 trees. We will be bringing in small trees and we will have to plant more [than what is there now]. Seton Hill commented that we do not want certain trees and we prefer certain ones. The remaining of the 30 trees will go around Orchard Street.

Vines growing on a wall is a security and safety issue. People can climb the vines and get into the facility. Also vermin can climb it.
Plus vines will attach to the wall and destroy it.

Al Alford, Project Manager for BGE: We do have a lot of problems in sub stations. People have tried to steel te cooper and they end up dead on the site as they are electrocuted in the process.

The wall is there to protect people from getting in and harming themselves and to keep BGE equipment safe from the outside world.
Everything is underground. There is no emission beyond federal safety.

BGE committed to a weekly cleaning of the site. There will be people using the site.

You can mix and match things from the different options. We will be open Sunday for people to see the designs.

In option 1 they are introducing precast concrete walls. The lower half will be brick.

If you have a chance, look at the Pratt and Green street facility.

We seem to prefer to have arches.

Any time you put walls higher, you are adding to the cost of the foudnation. We seem to be happy with the red brick wall.

With the precast concrete panels, you can have a relief on them. The City has a mural program. The Urban League just did a mural.

BGE conceded to rebuilding the wall and getting rid of the roll up door.

If you have any questions, please visit Seton Hill's web site or e-mail Karen.

Bob Quilter, City Planning Department	Three possible plans	Kenneth Michel, WR&A Associates
Brick Samples	Karen French, President, Seton Hill Neighborhood Association and Kenneth Michedl	Metal Gate Sample
Karen, Stakeholder and Architect		Stakeholder
Albert Alford, Project Manager, BGE	Kelly Pfeifer, Attorney, Community Law Center

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