The Swain School has received the unanimous recommendation of the Salisbury Township Planning Commission for a new soccer field, amphitheater and rain garden at its South 24th Street campus.

The plans were reviewed at the March 13 meeting of the township planning commission, which voted unanimously 7-0 to recommend the soccer field grading plan for approval by township commissioners.

A resolution to conditionally approve The Swain School grading plan is on the agenda of the 7 p.m. March 22 board of commissioners meeting.

The new soccer field will allow for the start of developmental level teams for grades two, three and four at Swain. Two soccer fields at the back or westernmost side of Swain are utilized by grades five through eight.

“We’ll be able to start a new program because the other fields are taken up,” Shannan Boyle Schuster, Ed.D., head of school, The Swain School, told a reporter for The Press following the 30-minute presentation at the planners’ meeting.

The Swain School is fundraising for its “Field of Dreams” project, which will place the soccer field in the front, or east side, of The Swain School, 1100 S. 24th St., Salisbury Township,

According to The Swain School’s website, the project is “just one component” of “ReImagine Swain,” the school’s three-year action plan.

“Field of Dreams” includes a soccer field, amphitheater and an environmental classroom.

The field is to be named Werner Field “in honor of the many years of service Maggie Werner has given to The Swain School athletics program, will serve as a playing space for our younger students and provide the opportunity to serve developmental level teams on our campus.”

The Ella Kovats-Bernat Ampitheater will be a space for classes, grades and the community “to gather and watch performances, hear speakers or simply reflect,” the website states.

The Barbara Schuster Memorial Learning Garden will be an environmental classroom “filled with unique and beneficial plantings that will allow students to explore and study the local ecosystem. It will also serve a sustainability purpose as well as provide a beautiful entrance to our school.”

Explained Boyle Schuster at the planning commission meeting, “One of the things we wanted to do is make a sustainability classroom.

“There was a need at Swain to have additional athletic fields,” she said.

Construction on the soccer field is expected to begin in the summer.

“It won’t be playable for the season of 2018-2019,” Joe Landrigan, AIA, LEED AP, said, who is on the board of directors of The Swain School, and attended the planners’ meeting. The playing field must be given a proper time for its natural-turf to grow, Landrigan told a reporter for The Press.

Landrigan is president of SAGE Design-Build, Inc., Allentown, which did the design work for the project. Among the projects the firm has worked on is Bell Gate Farm, the Coopersburg area wedding and event center off of Limeport Pike in Lower Milford Township.

Landrigan provided The Press with the artists’ renderings of The Swain School project.

“For this grading plan, a couple of waivers from the township Subdivision And Land Development Ordinance are being requested,” David J. Tettemer, township engineer, of Keystone Consulting Engineers, Inc., said to the planning commission.

Reading from his Feb. 12 review letter, Tettemer explained of the project, “What they have is an infiltration basin.” Because the area, as are many areas in the Lehigh Valley, is a sinkhole-prone area, a rain-garden system for stormwater runoff, rather than a detention pond, is required. A detention pond might have three to four-feet of stormwater. A rain garden might have six inches of water. Plantings will enhance the rain-garden area.

Planning Commission Chairman Charles Beck expressed concerns about a child wandering into the rain-garden area.

“We make a recommendation that you look into putting a fence between the soccer field and the rain garden,” Richard Schreiter, planning commission vice chair said.

Planner Jessica Klocek made the motion to recommend the fence, seconded by Glenn Miller, planning commission secretary. Planners approved 7-0.

In a separate 7-0 vote, on a motion by Miller and seconded by Schreiter, planners recommended approval of two waivers from the township SALDO Stormwater Management Plan.

The first waiver has to do with the basin bottom slope requirement of 2 percent. The rain-water system will basically have a flat basin.

The second waiver has to do with the basin-lining requirement. Because the rain-water system allows for stormwater infiltration, there is no lining.