Town officials are still deciding what kind of athletic fields to build on East Line Road and in Luther Forest, but they’ve agreed to accept and store free soil to use as fill for those future facilities.
The Town Board voted Monday to accept up to 200,000 cubic feet of clean sandy fill that will become available this spring if a townhouse project in Round Lake starts construction; the developer has offered the material to the town at no cost.
The project, Victorian Landings, is currently in the final stages of review by the Round Lake Planning Board.
A large amount of fill is going to be needed to level out the site before ball fields can be built on a 34-acre parcel the town owns in the Luther Forest Technology Campus.
The technology campus has been undergoing construction for the past two years and may also have fill from that work that could be made available to the town.
“I would consider the fill from both sources,” said Town Supervisor Paul Sausville.
The opportunities to get fill come up as the town is in the process of considering the best uses for the 34-acre property and also for the former Michalko property on East Line Road.
A volunteer field development committee appointed in January recommended last week that soccer fields be built on East Line Road and ball fields in Luther Forest.
However, town Parks and Recreation Director Audrey Ball cautioned the Town Board that the committee recommendations are very general, with detailed studies still needed before field construction can move forward.
She said fill will be needed regardless of the final decisions, but there also needs to be a town plan for storing the tons of fill until it is needed. The fill alone will cover 10 acres, she estimated.
GlobalFoundries, the company building the computer chip factory at the Luther Forest campus, last year gave the town $1 million to put toward developing the athletic fields as part of a host community benefit package.
The plans recommended by the field development committee, however, could cost much more than that.
“It might be many millions of dollars,” Sausville commented.
Categories: Uncategorized
