Present: Pastor Steve Bradley, Elders Tony Gazo, Brad Stewart and David Merkel. Also present: Deacon Jeff Chung, and Tony Jakub. Also, Don Boucher. (1 PM @ Frances Fuchs)
David opened the meeting in prayer.
We then discussed:
Jonathan Ceci sent his comments electronically, quoted here:
Here are my updates regarding the site plan approvals:
Simplified Natural Resource Inventory/Forest Stand Delineation (NRI/FSD). This was submitted, together with a letter requesting exemption from a Forest Conservation Plan, to the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC) on 11/10/11. The reviewer responded with some comments and requested adjustments on 11/23/11 and on 1/5/12. The plans have been revised and resubmitted by Noursi (in December and again on 1/6/12) so we should be getting approval soon.
Tree Save Plan. This has been prepared and was submitted together with NRI/FSD (above).
Forest Conservation Plan. If our letter requesting exemption is denied, this will need to be prepared and submitted to MNCPPC. Hopefully it will not be.
Stormwater Management Concept plan. Already submitted/approved. On October 10th, we received Montgomery County’s approval of our Stormwater Concept Plan.
Site Plan & Stormwater Management and Sediment Control Plan. Needs to be submitted to Montgomery County. Noursi has indicated a January 2012 submission time frame. I’m pressing him to follow through.
Stormwater easement for SWM facilities. We will need Noursi to prepare survey exhibits for recording these easements with the County. Not sure when this is supposed to happen.
On-site Water & Sewer Plans. The engineering for this water connection will be determined by the demands of the fire sprinkler system. If the water line reqired is greater than 2″, or the sewer line greater than 4″, an enginered “On-Site water / Sewer plan” is required. Noursi is still awaiting this data from our MEP Engineer. If it turns out that this is required, the plans will take about 6 weeks to prepare, and the anticipated approval period is between 4 to 6 months.
We then discussed modifications to the most recent plan, where the changes are:
- Joining the old building to the new building, with no firewall, and sprinkling both buildings.
- Shifting the locations of the main stairs and elevator.
- Moveable walls and seating in the meeting hall.
These changes to the plan will require changes to the costs of sprinkler systems, water systems at the street, and modifying structural plans as well. We will have to make our contractors converge on one single plan that we can submit to Montgomery County.
David closed the meeting in prayer.
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Present: Pastor Steve Bradley, Elders Tony Gazo, Brad Stewart and David Merkel. Also present: Deacon Jeff Chung, and Tony Jakub, Tim Hipp, and Jonathan Ceci. Also, Marcus Booker. (12 Noon @ Frances Fuchs)
David opened the meeting in prayer.
We then discussed:
- 3400 Greencastle sold to someone else.
- The need to get all documents together to those we have contracted with, so that they can finish up.
- The need to set a timeline to get all of plans and cost data in one place. We are aiming for 9/15.
- Thinking about how to get going on the color & style elements of our building.
- The need for an elevator. Marcus suggested that we might use Delaware Elevator.
Action points:
- Jonathan to talk to Peter Noursi.
- Brad to talk to the architect and the steel building contractor.
- David to talk to Amy over expenses so far.
We will meet next on 8/28. Steve closed our meeting in prayer.
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Present: Pastor Steve Bradley, Elders Tony Gazo, Brad Stewart and David Merkel. Also present: Deacon Jeff Chung, and Tony Jakub and Jonathan Ceci. (1PM @ Frances Fuchs)
David opened the meeting in prayer.
We convened to discuss our building project including the possibility of buying an adjacent piece of property. David provided some mortgage payment estimates for a variety of scenarios. It was decided
- Brad will talk to the property owner
- Brad will begin gathering data for cost estimates
- David will calculate additional scenarios
- Tony will draft two fundraising letters, one for former members of Trinity RPC, and one for current members.
Once we have cost estimates we can decide what ideas we want to present to the congregation for a possible meeting and vote.
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Present: Pastor Steve Bradley, Elders Tony Gazo, Brad Stewart and David Merkel. Also present: Deacon Jeff Chung, and Tony Jakub and Jonathan Ceci.
Brad opened the meeting in prayer.
The stormwater plan has been submitted to Montgomery County.
We will need to a percolation test on the property, and that action was approved by the committee. (Hey, the test was passed since the meeting.)
We decided not to knock down the garage, despite some advantages from doing it.
With raw materials pricing rising, we authorized Brad to enter into contracts with a steel building provider who will also provide structural engineering. (We have since placed an order, locking in the price) He was also authorized to employ a mechanical, electric, and plumbing engineer. (also done since)
We forsee a congregational meeting to approve building in September, but given the county, who can tell?
There is an outside possibility that we will get this done with loans from the denomination, and no external finance. Nonetheless, we are ready with external finance if the congregation should so approve.
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Hi, this is your clerk, sorry that he has been overwhelmed of late, but happy to be posting pictures tonight. These are drawings that our architect has done, and will give you an idea of what the proposed building looks like. These are all PDF files, so make sure you have a copy of Adobe Reader. Here we go:
A001-Layout1 Basement Plan
A002-Layout1 Ground Floor Plan
A003-Layout1 Roof Plan
A011-Layout1 Basement Furniture Plan
A012-Layout1 Ground Floor Furniture Plan
A012A-Layout1 Ground Floor Furniture Plan, alternate seating
A020-Layout1 Basement Ceiling Plan
A021-Layout1 Ground Floor Ceiling Plan
A101-Layout1 Front Elevation View
A102-Layout1 Side 1 Elevation View
A103-Layout1 Rear Elevation View
A104-Layout1 Side 2 Elevation View
A201-Layout1 Cross-sectional view
A202-Layout1 Front Interior elevation.
D001-Layout1 Basement Demolition Plan
D002-Layout1 Ground Floor Demolition Plan
That’s all for now. If you have any comments, let one of the elders or a building committee member know them.
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February 6th, 2011
Building Committee Meeting at Frances Fuchs, Beltsville at 2:00 PM
Minutes
Present: Pastor Steve Bradley, Elders Tony Gazo, Brad Stewart and David Merkel. Also present: Deacon Jeff Chung, and Scott Holden, Tim Hipp, Tony Jakub and Jonathan Ceci.
David opened the meeting in prayer.
We reviewed the architectural drawings, and considered all of the actions that we would need to take, but particularly regarding stormwater management. We decided to press ahead and get the civil engineer to file preliminary plans with Montgomery County, en route to filing final plans.
We also discussed ideas for the use of geothermal energy.
We adjourned the meeting at 2:55.
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Building Committee – 12:30PM September 5th, 2010 at Francis Fuchs Special School, Beltsville, MD.
Minutes
Attendance: Jonathan Ceci, Tim Hipp, Steve Bradley, Tony Gazo, Tony Jakub, David Merkel and Scott Holden.
David opened the meeting with prayer.
We discussed the two building plan designs, and unanimously chose the one where the main roofline goes north-south, reversing our earlier decision of having it go east-west. The main factor for change was acoustics.
BCC, we adjourned the meeting.
PS — Clerk note: we had one meeting in-between these two meetings that I did not record. The sense of that meeting led to us seeking out counsel from an expert on acoustics.
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Building Committee – 12:30PM September 5th, 2010 at Francis Fuchs Special School, Beltsville, MD.
Minutes
Attendance: Jonathan Ceci, Tim Hipp, Steve Bradley, Tony Gazo, Tony Jakub, David Merkel and Brad Stewart.
We gathered to decide on what plans to give to our architect and civil engineer for development purposes. We chose the following design, with a full basement, and some means of having an elevator:


And we chose the back portion of this design for the rear entryway of the church:

And this plan for the parking lot, which should give us 42, and perhaps as many as 48 spaces:

These plans should enable our civil engineer to develop detailed plans to submit to Montgomery County addressing stormwater management, sprinklers, parking, tree conservation, handicapped access and more, so that we van build in a way that will meet the requirements of the county. Once we have such approved plans in place, we should be able to develop a cost estimate for the building, and work out financing options, and bring the whole matter to the congregation for a vote.
We did not set a time to meet next, but that will be driven by the work of our civil engineer.
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Building Committee – 11:30AM August 22nd, 2010 at Francis Fuchs Special School, Beltsville, MD.
Minutes
Attendance: Jonathan Ceci, Tim Hipp, Scott Holden, Tony Jakub, David Merkel and Brad Stewart.
We gathered to view 2-D and 3-D renderings that our architect designed of five different variations of how our meeting house might look. I will display the 2-D renderings here. They are composed of a front view, a side view, and a floor plan. Here they are, with a few comments:
Study 1


Study 2


Study 3


Study 4


Study 5


And one more

Notes
- We need to decide whether we should have the architect proceed ahead with one or two designs. The committee’s tentative sense was that 3 and 5 were best.
- It does not matter for the purposes of the civil engineer, since the footprint of the building is the same either way.
- We do need to tell the civil engineer that we need more parking spaces than the current proposal, so that occupancy will be adequate.
- Because all but number 5 are rear entrance only designs, we will also need to focus on how the building looks from one entering via the parking lot.
- These designs incorporate a full basement, which will potentially allow for broader gatherings for fellowship meals.
- We will next meet after Sabbath school class on 9/5/2010, and before the lunch, in order to discuss this and other matters.
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Building Committee – 12:30PM August 1st, 2010 at Francis Fuchs Special School, Beltsville, MD.
Minutes
Attendance: Steve Bradley, Jonathan Ceci, Tony Gazo, Tim Hipp, Scott Holden, Tony Jakub, David Merkel and Brad Stewart.
Here are our issues:
- We need parking adequate to seat 160 (40 spaces)
- We would like a second entrance “curb cut” to the property on the southeast corner. It should be easy from a grading standpoint, and it should improve traffic flow because of visibility improvements.
- Given the degree to which we will cover the lot, stormwater management will be a costly issue.
- We will need to hire a forester to catalogue the trees on and near the property and submit a tree save plan to the county.
- The architect needs to get the building footprint to the civil engineer.
- The civil engineer needs to get to us a site plan to us by 8/22 or so.
After we get a site plan from the civil engineer, we can meet again. That might be near the end of the month.
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