Lehighton Area School District administration said Monday night it is not ignoring requests from Lehighton Borough for items necessary to close out the project for its elementary center, which opened in 2018.

“Whether it be from the approved plans or the requests made after the final approval was received,” Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said, “We wanted to notify the community that we were working on getting the final paperwork submitted.”

According to the borough, the district requested an addendum to the land development agreement to request the issuance of a temporary certificate of occupancy until all requirements of the land development processes could be met.

Council granted the request, however it never received the outstanding items. However, all the interior items were in good standing with the borough codes.

After the elementary center project was complete and the building was occupied, a request came from the borough in September of 2019 to develop a plan that altered the approved line striping plans to include a fire lane.

“Within that letter we received from the borough it mentioned that the placing of a designated fire lane would take away spaces from special event parking and cause the project not to comply with the zoning ordinance and/or the approved plans,” Cleaver said.

When the issue was brought up again in May, Cleaver added, the district’s civil engineer began working with the Lehighton fire chief to establish a plan that would meet the request in relation to the fire lane.

“Approved site plans were submitted to the fire chief for review and comment,” Cleaver said. “Again, the issue we struggled with was trying to avoid elimination of event parking spaces. After much discussion, the district and fire chief have developed a striping plan that meets the request of the borough and does not eliminate any event parking.”

The additional fire lane striping is scheduled to begin this week now that all summer camps are complete.

Going back to February 2020, according to a district timeline, there was discussion with the Lehighton Water Authority, when the district’s engineer requested clarification on the waterlines.

“As we are all aware shortly after that in March everything came to a standstill,” Cleaver said. “In recent months, we have been working to prepare to the as-built and easements for submission and review. The final documents have all been submitted to the borough as of Aug. 17 and they are in review from the borough’s team.”