Granville firehouse study gets serious

Granville Township Trustees are taking a serious look again at the prospect of a new or renovated Granville Township Fire Department fire station.

Trustee Bill Mason said statistics for fire and emergency runs are being examined for trends they hope will determine how soon a new or renovated facility would be needed.

Former Granville Township trustee and retired Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission director Bill Habig, a township resident, is assisting with the preliminary study, said Mason, who is the fire department's contact on the trustees board.

Trustees also included $40,000, if needed, for a firehouse study in their 2015 budget.

"We're just very much in the initial planning stages," Mason said. "It's due diligence one does before they undertake a project."

Run statistics from the last eight years are being considered, representing the time since the former Granville Volunteer Fire Department became the Granville Township department in January 2007.

"As a result of our first meeting, Bill asked Jeff to try to project runs out 35 years," Mason said.

"The run information will dictate the size of the station and the number of personnel needed in the future, (and) the number of trucks and equipment needed," he said. "At that point things get even more serious about location and how large a building there needs to be."

Fire Chief Jeff Hussey said Friday that in its first year of existence in 2007, the new township fire department had 925 runs, which doubled to 1,847 in 2014.

The current study was briefly mentioned March 9 at the second Granville Economic Sustainability meeting sponsored by the Granville Board of Education, during a segment when the local government tax structure and its demands were discussed.

"As a community we have to decide whether that is as a priority, and how we're going to have to fund that," trustees board chairman Paul Jenks said of the firehouse situation at the meeting. "There will be some tax burden associated with building a new structure."

In 2013 the trustees established a firehouse replacement fund that currently has $917,981 — money that was transferred from the general fund.

The department has been housed in its facility on North Prospect Street for approximately 50 years, township officials said, recently acquiring adjacent properties and renovating the structures on them for office space and sleeping quarters.

"We're going to have to take a good look at the current site, which the village owns, and we may have to look at other sites as well," Mason said. The $40,000 could be used for things such as soil borings and other expenses associated with a property search.

"All those kinds of things will have to be looked at by professionals," he said. "That money was put aside for the time when those kind of things are needed."

"I think we'll be in a position to show the public where the department has been as well as where it's going," Mason said, adding, "This is not a case of 'it would be nice to have.' "

"We want to make sure what we do is good for 35 years," Jenks said at the Economic Sustainability meeting. "Once we know what our expected runs are, then we'll select a location or rebuild on the current location, if that's possible."

Among limitations with the current building is space for equipment and staff, he said, and the ladder truck cannot be driven out of the firehouse without stopping and backing up, due to the narrowness of North Prospect and the position of the building.

"We can't even really attend to the maintenance needs to trucks without putting them out on the street in front of the fire department," Mason said.

Township Fiscal Officer Jerry Miller, who explained at the Economic Sustainability meeting that the township will eventually need new tax village for its general operations fund, said consideration is being given to selling to township-owned parcels at the intersection of Ohio 37 and James Road, using proceeds for the cost of a firehouse.

A study was also conducted in 2011 for a combined fire station/village police complex costing approximately $5.5 million, but the idea was abandoned due to the still-sagging national economy and the village decided not to participate.