NEW SCOTLAND — The town is taking first steps to replace leaking water lines while it continues to work toward completing restoration of the 125-year-old Hilton barn, envisioned as a community center.

“As everybody is quite aware over the last few years,” Supervisor Douglas LaGrange said during the town board’s Sept. 10 meeting, the 40-year-old Swift Road Water District system has “had a tremendous amount of leaks.”

LaGrange said it’s gotten to the point where “there’s at least a mile of the original water main,” from approximately Route 85 to the Swift Road town park, that needs to be replaced. 

To remedy the issue, the board approved a request for proposals for engineering services “for the design of the replacement of approximately 5,200 linear feet of existing water distribution main and appurtenances along Swift Road,” the project description states. “The existing main is six (6) inch, ductile iron pipe and has progressively corroded from the exterior due to improper backfill and potentially corrosive soils.”

The town is also considering the “potential to include the following additional alternatives”:

— The replacement of approximately 1,400 linear feet of existing main and appurtenances along Baltis Drive;

— Replacing about 1,300 linear feet of existing main and appurtenances along Overlook Drive; and 

— The  replacement of approximately 550 linear feet along Great View Terrace.

The board on Sept. 10 also set a public hearing to extend the Heldervale water and sewer districts. The extension, if approved, would extend the districts to 362 New Scotland South Road, the location of a four-lot subdivision. The meeting agenda notes extension costs, approximately $189,000, would be borne by the project developer. 

Hilton barn

The town continues to sink money into the historic Hilton barn, which it saved from demolition by moving it across Route 85A to stand next to the Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail.

On Sept. 10, the board approved another approximately $11,000 for construction administration services from project architect Thaler Reilly Wilson. 

Construction delays, for “multiple reasons,” had caused the architectural firm to exhaust its allocated fee for CA services as of Aug. 15. To ensure continued oversight, the board approved another 45 hours of Thaler Reilly Wilson oversight at $240 per hour; the contract modification runs through October, the anticipated end of work at the barn. 

The barn initially had an estimated project cost of $1.2 million, but then COVID happened, costs soared, and change orders were approved. 

The slate roof, for example, cost $513,5oo, approximately $61,000 over the project’s original cost. A $529,200 contract with Sanz Construction of Staten Island for work on the barn needed 150,000 additional dollars to deal with significant deterioration on the upper levels of the barn.

By the end of last year, the town had allocated about $285,000 of the $600,000 it had received in American Rescue Plan Act funding toward the project. 

New Scotland is also facing a lawsuit from a Brooklyn man who claimed to have sustained “severe, serious, and permanent personal injuries” after a fall from scaffolding for which he says the town was responsible.

In a complaint filed on May 27, Roman Tsegelniuk alleges that, on July 25, 2024, he was lawfully working on restoration of the Hilton barn when he “fell from an unsecured, defective, and dangerous scaffold on the premises.”

Tsegelniuk filed suit against the town because, he claimed, New Scotland was the general contractor and construction manager of the project, responsible for hiring and retaining contractors or subcontractors.  

The town in July said it would file a third-party complaint against Tsegelniuk’s employer, Sanz Construction. Asked Tuesday if the suit had been filed, LaGrange said it hadn’t.