Williamstown Housing Committee Exploring Funding Avenues

By Stephen DravisWilliamstown Correspondent
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The Affordable Housing Committee is working on a list of funding options.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Affordable Housing Committee on Tuesday discussed how it can identify funding opportunities for new housing projects or first-time homebuyers.

Three members of the six-person committee are working on pulling together information on housing programs. And on Tuesday, Charles Bonenti brought the full panel up to speed on their progress.

"Van [Ellet], Leigh [Short] and I are sifting through a number of government grant programs, mortgage programs, etc.," Bonenti said.

The task group has sought input from the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and local banks to compile a list of funding options, Bonenti said.

"We have a good list," he said. "Now, we have to delve into the eligibility."

Bonenti said the committee could present its final list to the Affordable Housing Trust, the town body established to facilitate funding subsidized housing, and it could list programs for consumers on the committee's website.

Another item likely destined for that website is the committee's mission statement, which also was discussed at Tuesday's meeting.

Three of the four committee members in attendance appeared ready to move forward with a draft they had before them, but member Van Ellet asked to give the text some more thought and raised some specific issues regarding the timing of the statement's adoption and the potential for overlap with the Affordable Housing Trust.



"Right now, the money is going to trust," Ellet said. "We have limited resources. If we're going to be involved in development, we need a budget."

Ellet also suggested that the committee might want to hold off on approving a mission statement and a set of goals until after April's report from John Ryan, the consultant it hired to do an assessment of the town's housing needs.

"Why would we vote on something like this until we we have more of a clarification of need - both the magnitude and [the needs of] special populations?" Ellet asked.

Committee Chairwoman Catherine Yamamoto noted that the committee could always revisit the mission statement at a later date if the demographic data points in that direction, but she agreed to let Ellet suggest revisions to the statement at a future meeting.

The committee did take action on appropriating $6,700 to finish the soil remediation project at the town-owned parcel at 59 Water St., referred to as the former town garage site. It had OK'd $9,000 toward the project at its February meeting, but it needed to allocate an additional $6,700 on Tuesday to cover soil disposal and fees to the Department of Environmental Protection. The total cost of the cleanup ended up at $15,850.

In other business on Tuesday, Yamamoto asked her colleagues to begin thinking about reorganization this summer, noting that she has chaired the committee for two years and, "it might be time to give someone else a chance."

Committee member Bilal Ansari suggested the committee consider funding a part-time staff person to support its work and that of the Affordable Housing Trust. He agreed to come back to the committee with a former proposal at a later date.


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Williamstown Planning Board Narrowing in on Subdivision Bylaw Changes

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board late last month discussed specific features of what it plans to pass as a new subdivision control bylaw this year.
 
The board long has discussed the complex set of regulations as being out of date and cumbersome to both potential developers and the board itself, which has needed to hear requests for waivers of outdated rules for the handful of residential subdivisions that have been proposed in town in recent years.
 
This spring, the town engaged consultants from Northampton's Dodson and Flinker Landscape Architecture and Planning to go through the existing bylaw, compare it to more contemporary regulations in other communities and help craft a revised bylaw.
 
Unlike the zoning bylaw, where amendments require approval of town meeting, the subdivision control bylaw is a creation of the Planning Board, which can make changes on its own after a public hearing process it hopes to complete this year.
 
At a special Planning Board meeting on May 26, Dillon Sussman of Dodson and Flinker and his colleagues walked the board through a dozen different decision points that the board must resolve — either by leaving the bylaw as is or making a change — and offered suggestions based on best practices.
 
All of the issues are technical and ranged from the fundamental, like how the bylaw will define types of subdivisions, to the highly specific, like what turning radii will be required in new streets that are constructed to serve planned developments.
 
One example of a topic that came up in the recent approval of a four-home subdivision off Summer Street is stormwater management.
 
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