Un-spinning the review board spin

To the editor: I went to both ARB meetings that had the proposed library design on the agenda and in each instance when the ARB was asked for feedback and interaction by library task force members they remained mute. Eventually they deferred to Mr. Benton, an architect from Philadelphia, who is paid by Milford Borough with your tax money to create false impressions like “the building is too large,” when in fact the borough guidelines state that a new building can occupy up to 75% of a lot and the new library will only occupy about 50% of the land! (Please note that library architect Mr. Schwartz from New York City has thus far donated his time to this project.) I also attended the public hearing which was held to educate and encourage interaction between the community, the architect and the library board. The ARB members that were present did not speak up and Beth Kelley was not there to hear the public’s response to the library design. The library task force did not attend last Wednesday’s ARB review meeting because of the improper failure of the ARB to notify them that they were an agenda item. It seems nothing less than cowardly to discuss the library plan without notice and to subsequently publicly accuse the library board of being exclusive and unresponsive to the ARB and Borough members when the record will show that the opposite is true. One has to wonder why the ARB and the Borough council have chosen to operate at this level. In fact one has to wonder why some in the community want to leave a legacy of denying their town a library and cultural community center. Building a library is not personal it’s a social act for the cultural future of a community and is meant to service all that live there regardless of religion, social status, age, color, gender, intellect etc. The article in last week’s Courier was deceptive and manipulative regarding the inclusive and transparent process the library board and task force have gone through to reflect local needs while engaging the community, the Borough Council and the ARB. Am I the only one who is sick of getting this kind of twisted self-serving information through the media? For instance Rite Aid is NOT being made to jump through hoops by the ARB; on the contrary, they have been given a green light to develop plans that include the demolition of a historic building in the center of the historic district! Their proposed building will max out their building lot and pave over the rest for parking spaces. Not an inch of “green space” will be left. Also Rite Aid has not been asked to comply to the same “massing” as their neighboring historic properties, an important ARB guideline, which are all at least three stories high whereas the Rite Aid’s plan is one story. If this Rite Aid is indeed built it will set a precedent and no guidelines can stop corporate chains to do the same in the future, and this ought to be a much larger issue to Milford and the ARB than anything else they are dealing with. Contrary to Mr. Benton’s public intimations the library design complies with the borough’s massing guideline by standing at the same height as the adjacent buildings while ARB guidelines allow up to 10% higher than neighboring building. Mr. Stroyan incorrectly stated that the library will “hang over another person’s property”. The design follows the exact same set-backs as all other buildings in Milford and to say otherwise is another inflammatory untruth. So who benefits from this irresponsible polarization of our town? It is not in the spirit of “giving back” by Dorothy Warner and the local volunteers (without using any of your tax money.) It is the opposite of the spirit in which the building was designed from the inside out to be Green, energy efficient and sustainable while celebrating the natural beauty of its setting. Which other Milford structure that was recently built can claim to do so? Turkey Hill? Grand Union? The vast Altec-Lansing warehouse? The proposed Rite Aid? All 21st century buildings ought to be cost effective and set the example of restraint and energy sufficiency rather than echoing a time when we did not worry about sustainability of our resources and showed off our wealth through extravagance and costly detail. Design (form follows function) has always been an instrument of transformation and change can be daunting since the human mind has an incredible capacity for convincing us that the unknown can only be bad, but our world will not survive if we apply the building standards of the 19th and early 20th century, cloaked in the romantic appeal of “historic”, to the environmental crisis that we are now facing. Don’t we owe it to our children and generations to come to unite and build a library that will teach and inspire them in new and as yet unknown ways of respecting and preserving life in the 21st century, much in the same spirit Gifford Pinchot pioneered environmentalism for the 20th century? Barbara de Vries Milford