The clear-cutting of trees on property where the new firehouse and emergency services building will be built was the result of miscommunication with subcontractors, according to Fairfield Glade Community Club leaders.
Board of Directors President Greg Jones told the Glade Sun the miscommunication was between the club’s project management team and subcontractors in coordinating site preparation, with tree-cutting part of it.
That, he said in an email message, was the “root cause” of the mistaken cutting.
The matter came up at the board’s May meeting when property owner Ted Landers asked why the property off the corner of Peavine Road and Catoosa Boulevard was clear-cut. He said he was “very disappointed about the complete and utter removal of every tree.”
He repeated what he told the board last year when the community club’s tree policy was revised, that he was “passionate about trees.”
Landers said although he understood the clear-cutting was a mistake, “we now have a very ugly situation” where an adjacent electrical substation is more visible than it was before the cutting.
“There is no quick fix to this, but what is being done in order to try and rectify this?” he asked.
General Manager Bill Ward told Landers a contractor “went beyond the scope” of how much of the property was intended to be cleared.
“A mistake was made, and that has been addressed, and it is unfortunate,” he told Landers.
Ward said there already was a landscaping plan for the area where the fire station will be built and that it now would be extended to where trees were incorrectly cut down.
He told the Glade Sun by email that “upcoming plantings and any further landscaping are being addressed within the approved scope and budget for the project.”
Since the meeting, a row of trees has been planted on the property.
The site will be the new home of Fairfield Glade Fire Department’s main fire station (No. 1), which will be moved from its current location along Peavine Road near Stonehenge Drive. It will include an ambulance and sleeping quarters for county emergency medical services personnel.