Lower Merion Commissioner Andy Gavrin (D, Ward 6 – Villanova) was questioning Carl Primavera, an attorney who represents the Lower Merion School District at a meeting of the Building an Planning Committee (a “committee” which is comprised of all 14 members of the Board of Commissioners).
The meeting took place at the Township Building on Wednesday Night (11/15).
The issue that brought about Gavrin and Primavera’s eyebrow raising exchange had to do with an historic building located on the property where Lower Merion School District expects to locate the playing fields for its planned new middle school, in Villanova.
The new school will be located at 1860 Montgomery Avenue. The district also bought two other properties that are nearly adjacent to the new school property. They are located at 1835 County Line Road and 1800 West Montgomery Avenue.
The building in question is known as the Superintendent’s Cottage. The preliminary sketch plan that the district submitted for the playing fields calls for the Superintendent’s Cottage to be demolished.
When Gavrin began to question Primavera as to why the building needed be demolished, Primavera deferred to Jim Lill, Director of Operations for the school district.
Gavrin continued, “why,” he asked Lill, “are we not preserving The Superintendent’s Cottage, which does not fall within the fields, does not fall within the over-run to the fields and is not a safety issue? Why is that not being preserved?”
Lill’s Resonse: Two Reasons.
Number one – It is not listed on the Historic Resource Inventroy.
Number two – It does not serve a purpose, so we do not see the benefit of incurring the maintenance cost of that structure.
Gavrin responded to Lill and Primavera by insisting that even though the Superintendent’s Cottage was not listed on the Historic Resource Inventory, did not mean that the building was not historic.
Primavera responded by saying, “We don’t want to be charged with wasting public funds… and that includes time spent dealing with what we believe to be unfair requirements imposed on us.
Gavrin answered Primaverera saying, ” I apologize that you have to be here in front of us, and do something that you feel is unfair. I think this is critcially important to for the future of our township and maintaining the history of our township.”