Williamstown Finance Panel Gets Details on Housing Needs

By Stephen DravisWilliamstown Correspondent
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Affordable Housing Committee Chairwoman Catherine Yamato speaks at Thursday's Finance Committee meeting.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Representatives of the two town boards dedicated to addressing its affordable housing needs discussed the issue with the Finance Committee on Thursday night.

Not surprisingly, one of the chief topics of discussion involved how affordable housing projects are financed.

Affordable Housing Committee Chairwoman Catherine Yamamoto and Affordable Housing Trust Chairman Stanley Parese indicated that large-scale subsidized housing projects would require outside funding.

Using for example the most ambitious development under consideration in town, Yamamoto said that even if the town receives the $6 million FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant it has applied for and even if it has several million dollars leftover after closing the Spruces Mobile Home Park (as required under the grant), additional grants funds would be needed to build houses on a town-owned site under consideration.

"The only thing we've talked about in a very conceptual way is what the Affordable Housing Committee asked Guntlow (and Associates) to do: a conceptual plan for the Lowry Property," Yamamoto said.

That initial concept envisions 40 single-family homes on 10 acres of the 30-acre Lowry site, land that currently is in conservation.

"With $3 million, you're not going to clear the land and build 40 homes," Yamamoto said. "The first thing we'd have to do is put out an RFP (request for proposals) and bring in a home developer."

Developers would know which federal and state grant programs would be applicable to support the kind of housing Yamamoto's committee and the Selectmen envision for the Lowry Property, Yamamoto and Parese said.

The element of public financing is one of the primary criteria for determining what makes housing stock classifiable as "affordable housing," Yamamoto explained.

"The housing in a mobile home park is low-cost housing, but it's not affordable housing with a capital 'A' and a capital 'H'," she said. "It's not supported by public dollars."
 

Yamato explained how many housing units were lost in Irene and the criteria for new housing.

Other criteria Yamamoto outlined for affordable housing in the strict sense: its purchase price or rent is regulated and it is affordable to moderate- or low-income households.


Some affordable housing projects, like the Proprietors Field project on Church Street in Williamstown, has rents capped at 30 percent of a resident's income.

Other models base rent on a percentage of the "area median income" or AMI as determined by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development based on census data. For Williamstown residents, the AMI is about $61,000 per year (before taxes). The locally financed Church Corner project on Cole Avenue has rents capped at 80 percent of the AMI, Yamamoto said.

By these generally recognized criteria for affordable housing, the town has 147 units that meet the definition, Yamamoto said: 60 at Proprietors Field, 30 at Meadowvale, 22 at Spring Meadow, 16 units managed by the town's Housing Authority, eight privately run but publicly financed units in a group home for residents with special needs, eight apartments at Church Corner and three Habitat for Humanity projects with deed restrictions specifying income levels for owner-occupants.

With about 2,800 households in town, that means about 5 percent of its housing stock is categorized as affordable housing — well below the 10 percent target for communities established by the commonwealth in 1969 or the "190 to 225" units targeted by the town's 2002 Master Plan.

Yamamoto's and Parese's committees — and others in town — are striving to address a need for affordable housing that predates the loss of 155 homes at the Spruces in Tropical Storm Irene. And each chairman spoke passionately about the issue on Thursday night.

Alluding to the controversy in town surrounding the proposal to develop the Lowry Property, Parese challenged the notion that the town can address its need for housing without using undeveloped land.

"We're not going to address the affordable housing needs in town and those 150 homes [lost at the Spruces] with brownfields and infill," Parese said. "We're trying as a community build housing for people who were here and lost their homes."

Yamamoto referred to a housing needs assessment her committee has commissioned and said the preliminary findings indicate that the town's demographics are shifting away from first-time homeowners and low- and moderate-income residents.

"What kind of town do we want Williamstown to be?" she asked. "Do we want only a certain demographic here? ... Williamstown is getting older and wealthier with fewer children.

"Maybe some people want that. I don't."


Tags: affordable housing,   Finance Committee,   

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WCMA: 'Cracking the Code on Numerology'

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) opens a new exhibition, "Cracking the Cosmic Code: Numerology in Medieval Art."
 
The exhibit opened on March 22.
 
According to a press release: 
 
The idea that numbers emanate sacred significance, and connect the past with the future, is prehistoric and global. Rooted in the Babylonian science of astrology, medieval Christian numerology taught that God created a well-ordered universe. Deciphering the universe's numerical patterns would reveal the Creator's grand plan for humanity, including individual fates. 
 
This unquestioned concept deeply pervaded European cultures through centuries. Theologians and lay people alike fervently interpreted the Bible literally and figuratively via number theory, because as King Solomon told God, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight" (Wisdom 11:22). 
 
"Cracking the Cosmic Code" explores medieval relationships among numbers, events, and works of art. The medieval and Renaissance art on display in this exhibition from the 5th to 17th centuries—including a 15th-century birth platter by Lippo d'Andrea from Florence; a 14th-century panel fragment with courtly scenes from Palace Curiel de los Ajos, Valladolid, Spain; and a 12th-century wall capital from the Monastery at Moutiers-Saint-Jean—reveal numerical patterns as they relate to architecture, literature, gender, and timekeeping. 
 
"There was no realm of thought that was not influenced by the all-consuming belief that all things were celestially ordered, from human life to stones, herbs, and metals," said WCMA Assistant Curator Elizabeth Sandoval, who curated the exhibition. "As Vincent Foster Hopper expounds, numbers were 'fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with meaning.' These artworks tease out numerical patterns and their multiple possible meanings, in relation to gender, literature, and the celestial sphere. 
 
"The exhibition looks back while moving forward: It relies on the collection's strengths in Western medieval Christianity, but points to the future with goals of acquiring works from the global Middle Ages. It also nods to the history of the gallery as a medieval period room at this pivotal time in WCMA's history before the momentous move to a new building," Sandoval said.
 
Cracking the Cosmic Code runs through Dec. 22.
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