EPOCH Offers Community Garden Plots

10:00AM / Wednesday, May 06, 2009Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — EPOCH Assisted Living at Melbourne announced that it is hosting a community garden and offering garden plots for members of the Berkshire community. Local gardeners are encouraged to participate and take advantage of good soil, water and assistance.

This is EPOCH’s fourth annual community garden, located on 50 acres of fertile land at the assisted living community.

The Melbourne Community Garden will be located next to the assisted living community, at 140 Melbourne Road in Pittsfield, and will officially open in mid-May, subject to change due to the spring weather. Participants will be assigned a specific section to garden and will be responsible for all activities pertaining to their plot, including planting, weeding, watering and harvesting. Water will be available at the garden site, and the soil will be freshly tilled prior to the garden’s grand opening.

Access to the EPOCH at Melbourne Community Garden will be available seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

“The community garden improves with each season and creates an energetic buzz around our grounds. It’s been a great way to bring neighbors together and meet new friends.” said Diane Weinstein, EPOCH’s executive director.

The community garden project is free. Green thumbs wishing to reserve a garden plot may do so by calling Rita Schillinger at 413-499-1992. More information will be provided to those that register as the spring season evolves.

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Pittsfield Switching to OpenGov for Permitting Software

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:09AM / Tuesday, February 24, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The city plans to move on from its "clunky" permitting software in the new fiscal year, switching to OpenGov instead.

On Thursday, the Finance Subcommittee supported a $199,269 free cash appropriation for the conversion to a new online permitting software. Chief Information Officer Kevin Zawistowski explained that Permit Eyes, the current governmental software, is no longer meeting Pittsfield's needs.

The nearly $200,000 appropriation is for the software license and implementation. Going forward, the annual cost for OpenGov will be about $83,000; about $66,000 for the next fiscal year, not including building permits.

"We've had significant issues across the board with the functionality of the system, right down to the actual permits that they're attempting to help us with," he said.

"Without going into details with that, we have to find a new system so that our permits can actually be done effectively, and we can kind of restore trust in our permitting process online."

The city is having delays on permits, customer support, and a "lack of ownership and apology" when mistakes are made, Zawistowski reported. Pittsfield currently pays $49,280 annually for the software, which Open Gov is expected to replace after July 1.

Running alongside this effort, the city wants to bring building permitting software under the city umbrella, rather than being countywide under the vendor Pittsfield is moving away from.

Finance Director Matthew Kerwood explained that the city has gone through a procurement process, OpenGov being the lowest bidder, and the vendor has been paid with contingency money "because we needed to get this project moving." He said Permit Eyes is a "clunky" piece of software, and the company has not invested in technology upgrades where it should have.

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