Members of the family of Craig Richard say they are satisfied with a new plan that would save a tree planted in his honor in front of Freeport High School, 25 years after he was killed in a bicycling accident on Wardtown Road.

Richard’s mother, Jennifer Downs, and his sister, Sharon Richard, both expressed satisfaction with a Regional School Unit 5 site plan amendment that would change the design of the entrance loop in front of Freeport High, and thereby save the tree. The original plan called for removal of the maple tree.

PDT Architects of Portland, which is designing the renovation, last week came up with “option B.”

“I think that looks good,” Downs told the Freeport Project Review Board at a meeting July 8. “We’re happy with that.”

Downs and her daughter saw the new plans for the first time earlier on Wednesday, during a meeting of the Freeport High School Advisory Building Committee.

The Project Review Board, meanwhile, tabled a decision on elements of the site plan review until its Aug. 12 meeting, and scheduled a public hearing the same night. The Town Council has not yet conveyed a deed on town property that RSU 5 must obtain in order to do the $14.6 million renovation, and will take up that matter at its July 21 meeting. Even given that deed, the Project Review Board must rule on some potential roadblocks to the site plan amendment – the memorial tree included.

Cliff Goodall, Project Review Board chairman, said at the July 8 meeting that RSU 5 should not even place portable classrooms near the tree during the construction process.

“The school needs to know that they cannot put those portables there, even on a temporary basis,” Goodall told officials from PDT Architects, who attended the meeting. “If they do, there will be all hell to pay.”

Goodall said that the memorial tree lies at the bottom of a “saucer,” and that water drainage to the tree is a concern.

Downs, Sharon Richard and her daughter, Jenna, brought attention to the memorial tree on June 22, when they placed flowers and a collage near it on the 25th anniversary of Craig Richard’s death.

Leaving the Project Review Board meeting with her daughter, Sharon Richard said that she had no objection to RSU 5’s new plan, which narrows and tightens the loop.

“I am OK with anything that keeps the tree,” Richard said. “I will rally support for that public hearing and get people here.”

The Project Review Board also expressed concern that RSU 5 might remove some of the buffer between the school and the abutting condominium association. Kathy Cahill, representing PDT Architects, assured the board that will not be the case.

“There’s no intention to disrupt the buffer,” Cahill said. “This design we are very confident addresses multiple concerns. We’re quite happy with it.”

In addition to the front loop, RSU 5 plans a two-story addition on the northwest side of the school, with removal of the existing industrial arts building and smaller outbuildings.

Given a deed to the property, RSU 5 would grant a public easement so that people could still operate motor vehicles on Snow Road, in back of the school. RSU 5 wants to build a sidewalk farther down Snow Road, near the athletic fields, and a new 87-space student parking lot off Snow Road.

The project also includes reconstruction of the athletic field to improve drainage, and no change to its footprint. A group of Freeport, Durham and Pownal residents, meanwhile, have proposed replacing the grass field with synthetic turf, and a surrounding track.

Board member Henry Gallant said that noise from Interstate 295 – its tree buffers recently clear-cut by the Maine Department of Transportation – poses a problem at the field, and questioned the plan to keep the same layout. The planting of any buffers, however, would encroach on the playing area.

Gallant said he recently attended a girls lacrosse game there.

“Girls playing there say they can’t even hear the referee,” Gallant said. “If you can’t hear, you don’t have a playing field.”

“Option B,” developed by PDT Architects, would save the tree planted in front of Freeport High School 25 years ago in memory of student Craig Richard, by changing the contour of the vehicle loop.Image courtesy of PDT Architects