South Hero officials are calling the town office building a “total loss” after an inspection earlier this month found a host of structural issues in addition to wood rot and mold.
“This building is not going to be salvageable,” said Ross Brown, vice chair of the South Hero Selectboard, at a board meeting in the town office Monday. “It’s a tear-down.”
According to the inspector’s report, the crawl space of the 1920s-era building is full of standing water, which has caused beams that hold up the ground floor to rot — “a major structural concern.” The inspector could not get a full look around the basement, according to the report, because there was so much water and mud in the way.
Standing water has also caused excessive mold growth underneath the ground floor that needs professional remediation, the report found. The inspector documented cracks and other weaknesses across the building’s exterior stonework and windows, as well as handrails inside and outside that do not comply with state accessibility rules.
The report also pointed out a likely presence of asbestos fibers in the ceilings of the building and urged the town to redirect a pipe that was likely venting out toxic fumes from the building’s sewer system just feet away from a second-floor window.
David Carter, the chair of the selectboard, characterized the report as “sobering” at a June 12 board meeting where its findings were first shared with the public.
Officials ordered tests of the building’s air quality after Martha Taylor-Varney, the town zoning administrator, expressed concerns at that meeting over the amount of mold described in the report.
Test samples collected June 16 showed that the concentration of mold spores was by far the highest — nearly double the amount outside the building — in the crawl space area. Concentrations were about 20 times lower in the main entryway and common room, and lower still in the office spaces that Taylor-Varney and other staff use.
Brown said at Monday’s meeting he was not concerned about the building’s air quality after seeing the test results, and no other board members raised concerns, either.
Town officials commissioned the inspection in the first place as part of an effort to study the feasibility of relocating the town offices to the nearby site of the town’s historic Old White Meeting House. Voters approved a feasibility study on Town Meeting Day.
Brown, who is now leading a feasibility study committee, said the results of the building inspection could expedite the panel’s work. There are numerous smaller repairs detailed in the inspection report that the town could be able to tackle in the meantime, he said.
Town officials and residents have known about issues in the ailing Route 2 building — many of which are visible from the outside — for years, though suggested at recent meetings that the extent of the structural woes was worse than they were expecting. Officials also maintain that the town’s needs have outgrown their existing building.
At its meeting June 19, members of the study committee said it may not be feasible to move the town offices into the old meeting house, which also needs significant repairs and is the subject of an ongoing preservation campaign. Instead, they’re now looking into what it would take to stand up a new, separate town office building entirely.
The feasibility study committee plans to meet again at 6 p.m. Monday, July 3, and officials urged residents to come and share ideas for the best next steps.
