Building and Grounds LRP

LONG RANGE PLAN

BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS


CHAIRMAN: MATT PALMER
508-362-3839


LONG RANGE PLAN: Buildings Grounds and Gardens Draft 3/10/06


Current Status:

The congregation of St. Mary’s has the blessing of a beautiful church, extensive facilities and renowned and beautiful surrounding gardens. The physical plant is valued at several million dollars and portions of this facility are over 100 years old with a new addition built in the 1960’s. We also have the burden of maintaining a facility with significant demands for upkeep and improvement:

• Our church is located in a low wet area with a stream running through the property. Drainage and periodic flooding are continual problems-particularly in the library area of the building.
• Our beautiful and extensive gardens require significant maintenance and our current volunteer base is ageing.
• Historically, we have not allocated adequate resources for ongoing maintenance of our facilities.
• We need to demonstrate environmental stewardship of our physical plant

For a number of years, little capital maintenance or improvements were performed at the church, primarily due to lack of funding. In the past ten years some of the backlog of deferred maintenance has been completed. While funding has come from the capital growth of the endowment or bequests to the church, there is no annual budget set for these needs and it has been done on an ad hoc basis. Ideally we would create an annual capital allocation for buildings and grounds so that a more structured planning process could be implemented.

In the last few years we have completed the following projects:
• Significant renovation of the rectory including a new roof.
• Replacement of roof on church
• Re-shingling of the main church and classroom wing.
• Replacement of all doors and windows in classroom wing.
• Renovation of bathrooms in basement area.


Goals

• Identify, prioritize, and estimate costs for property and grounds projects requiring capital funding in the next three years.
• Insure the continued maintenance of St. Mary’s Garden
• Create an energy efficient physical plant and develop on-site renewable energy sources to demonstrate environmental stewardship and realize cost savings.
• Insure process, personnel and funding for on-going maintenance needs.
• Engage other members of Parish to participate and utilize their talents to assist in the upkeep and improvement of buildings and grounds. This should include a succession plan for key areas such as garden maintenance.


Strategies

• Develop a prioritized list of required upgrades and maintenance for physical plant including rough cost estimates.
• Develop and implement a process to deal with drainage issues.
• Develop a plan to increase resources for grounds maintenance including the recruitment of new volunteers and use of other church organizations such as the Youth Group.
• Initiate energy audits to identify opportunities for cost savings and better environmental stewardship and implement recommendations.
• Work with Stewardship and Long-Range Planning to continue exploring opportunities for bequests and other gifts in support of major capital projects.

Tactics

(To be completed as long term planning committee for this area is established.)

OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS

• There is a great opportunity to better leverage the talents and time of our parishioners in the maintenance and improvement of our physical plant and gardens. The recent parish survey will help us identify those who may be willing and able to assist us.
• There is a continued concern that we our able to have our available funding keep pace with the maintenance needs of our ageing plant. Our ability to be proactive in the area of capital maintenance rather than reactive will be less costly in the long run.

MILESTONES

• Work with the Finance committee to identify and retain resource for ongoing capital maintenance of physical plant (4th Qtr 06.)
• Complete prioritized list of required capital improvements with cost estimates. (4th Qtr 06)
• Complete energy audits (3rd Qtr 06)
• Actively recruit parish members for both ongoing committee participation as well as support for specific maintenance and development projects. (2nd Qtr)
• Create and implement drainage system maintenance plan (3rd Qtr 06)
• Develop and implement a plan for ongoing grounds maintenance (4th Qtr 06)
• Identify new volunteers to assist in ongoing gardens maintenance (1st Qtr 07)