The Pinehurst Village Council approved a timeline and plan for the Tufts Memorial Park Project that, if everything goes to schedule, could have the project completed this fall.

The council unanimously approved the timeline and plan during its work session Tuesday night. Mayor Nancy Roy Fiorillo was absent from the meeting.

The project is estimated to cost $250,000 and does not include the complete relocation and resurfacing of the downtown sand parking lot.

The project will impact parking in the sandlot, taking approximately 55 parking spaces. The village hopes to mitigate the loss of spaces by leasing between 15 and 25 parking spaces behind the Holly Inn and behind the Maples Building, which is located behind the old Post Office building.

"Loss of parking spaces without a timeline for deciding how to replace and add more spaces would be difficult for business owners, downtown property owners and the community at large to accept," Batton wrote in a memo to the council.

"Staff feels that if Tuft's Memorial Park moves forward, an announcement regarding a specific deadline on when a decision is going to be made regarding adding parking spaces knees to also be made. Short of that we feel the park project will meet with resistance, not because of the merits of the park, but due to parking impacts."

Council member John Cashion called the issue a Catch-22.

"Waiting isn't good in the long-term, he said, "If we don't get started we will never get through. I think we are going to have parking problems until the whole thing is finished."

Council member Mark Parson said now is as good a time as any to absorb the disruption in parkings, saying he'd rather see it done when the buildings downtown are less populated with businesses.

Since the project is no longer paired with the complete relocation and improvement to the sandlot, Batton told the council that there will be some redesign work to the transition area between the lot and the village green to create another entry/exit to the lot.

The project will also entail some tree removal and replacement, Batton said.

Concerns were raised about drainage in the area, and how parking in front of the library would be affected.

Before the project can be bid, which is projected on the timeline to happen sometime in June, the transition area from the park to the sandlot must redesigned, a sedimentation/erosion control permit must be obtained from the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Separating the work on Tufts Memorial Park from the work on the sandlot could increase the cost of any future improvements to the sandlot.