Marshfield: Abutter worries tighten exterior design of new co-located school

Security, drainage, lighting, and the visual perimeter of the new co-located Marshfield school are on the list of concerns for Tilden Road abutters, but Wednesday night the project’s design team, Ai3, proposed revising the back of the property to the School Building Committee.

Rather than the current 4-foot fence, the entire rear side would be lined with a 6-foot black chain linked fence. According to Scott Dunlap from Ai3, the fence height proposed has a two-fold purpose: to be visually pleasing and prevent trespassing on abutter or school property, “If you go to an 8 foot high fence or a 10 foot high fence it really will start to feel like this has a prison-like boundary on it. An 8 or 10 foot high fence is a really high fence.”

The average Tilden Road abutter is 95 feet from the rear property line and will be minimally affected by light and sound from the co-located school, according to Ai3.

Landscape architect Arthur Eddy explained a string of trees will be parallel to the back fence, “Once you do an evergreen buffer it’s really a large buffer so those trees will grow up 15 to 20 feet tall so any planting will rebound sound, so sound won’t go through.”

The design company also recommended going from four light poles at the rear sports practice field to only two in order to reduce light pollution seen by abutters.

The Marshfield School Building Committee voted in favor of accepting the rear side revision.

Construction of the middle/high school is set to begin this summer.

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