Belmont's Wellington School Given OK To Receive Final Occupancy Notice

Talk about being tardy.

It has been 615 days (or 885,600 minutes) since the doors opened on at the new Wellington Elementary School on Sept. 7, 2011 until yesterday, Tuesday, May 14, and for that entire time, the school building has been up and running with a temporary occupancy license issued each month by the Office of Community Development. 

That will change when Glenn Clancy, as town engineer, sign his name on a Certificate of Occupancy that will allow the School Department and town to finally close the book on the project.

The final dotting of the i's and crossing of the t's will occur after the Belmont Planning Board voted unanimously to close a more than year long public meeting to discuss attempts by the Wellington School Building Committee – which oversaw the construction for the School Department – to mitigate a myriad of sounds and noises that several abutting homeowners to the $40 million school said was harming their quality of life.

"I'm satisfied that you've taken these issues seriously," said Planning Board Chair Sami Baghdady to William Lovallo and Eric Smith who represented the Building Committee at the board's meeting on Monday, May 14.

Lovallo told the Planning Board that the building committee has spent $150,000 to building structures around the roof-top heating and cooling equipment to deflect the noise away from the southern portion of the building where homeowners along Orchard Street and Glendale Road have noticed early morning sounds and noises from the building.

In addition, the Committee is providing to the School District's building maintenance team ever increasing control over the school's computerized and automated climate control system, allowing school personnel to change the starting times for the heating system.

The Odyssey-esque venture of the Building Committee started in February 2012 when the Planning Board (which had the final say on allowing the building to have a final occupancy permit) requested the Committee to resolve the noise issues – the sound of the heating systems going on early in the pre-dawn hours, the loudness from the roof-top systems, a rumbling vibration felt around structures – that a dozen of homeowners raised to the Board since the building was open five months earlier. 

Actions taken

Lovallo told the Board the Committee held meetings with residents, hired an acoustic consultant and after many stop-and-starts, installed the noise mitigation panels and buffering structures this year. In addition, building personnel have made adjustments to the timing when the systems are used. 

While many homeowners have noticed the reduction in noise, some pointed to a low-frequency sound that occurred during the night. Recently, the Building Committee believe they discovered the sound is coming from the school's boilers producing a resonate noise that travels through the exhaust pipe when running at or near high capacity. 

"No one thinks this is normal. But the good news is that we have put a finger on a particular noise," said Lovallo. 

Due to the work it has committed to and effort in the future to resolve or dampen the noise problems, Lovallo asked the Planning Board to end the meeting and allow the Building Committee to complete the final requirements it has with the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the state-run financial entity that help finance building the school. 

With the assurance that the Building Committee would be back before the Board later in the year to review any lingering issues, Baghdady said the community will have the insurance they are seeking.

"Thank you for your persistence," said Baghdady to both the residents and the Building Committee.