Williamstown Committee Hears From Spruces Residents
 The Rev. Sue Stewart and Lucy Sherrill, right, were among those who spoke against closing the Spruces Mobile Home park. |
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — There was one point of agreement residents of the Spruces Mobile Home Park who attended Friday's meeting of the town's Long-term Coordinating Committee.
They don't want to live in an apartment building.
"None of us would accept anything like the PhoTech site," said Cynthia Cleremont-Rebello, referring to the town-owned brownfields site on Cole Avenue under consideration for developing subsidized housing.
"We don't want to be plopped in the middle of a city."
Charlene Blood echoed that sentiment.
"The Lowry property isn't a big issue for me," she said, referring to the 30-acre undeveloped parcel also under consideration for development by the town. "The issue with Lowry is it seems to be the only place you can put single-dwelling homes.
"There are very few people here who would want to live in an apartment building. That's why we moved into our little mobile homes. We didn't move here to go into an apartment building."
"We don't want high-density living," Carol Zingarelli said. "We want our four walls. Put aside any architectural drawings ... that look like Brooklyn."
Blood, Cleremont-Rebello and Zingarelli were among about four dozen residents of the Spruces who attended the LTCC's listening session on Friday afternooon in the outdoor pavillion at the park.
The committee organized the meeting to learn what sort of housing the residents at the park would prefer when the park is closed. Closure appears to be inevitable after this week the chairman of the Board of Selectmen signed a contract accepting a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant under which the park's owner would be obligated to shut down the park, which resides in a flood plain.
The town currently is in negotiations to acquire the park from Pittsford, N.Y.,-based Morgan Management.
Town Manager Peter Fohlin on Friday afternoon said he fully expects an agreement to be reached. He negotiated the broad outline of the acquisition before applying for the grant, and the terms are still the same; Morgan stands to recover $600,000 from the $6 million FEMA grant in exchange for the ability to turn over responsibility for the park and its closure to the town.
The actual terms of the exchange are yet to be determined, and any acquisition by the town likely would end up before a special town meeting, the third this year involving either the Spruces or the Lowry property.
"We all must keep in mind as well that until town meeting accepts the gift/purchase/friendly taking (method yet to be determined) to transfer the property from Morgan to the town, there is no 'deal,' " Fohlin wrote in an email Friday replying to a question about the grant.
Friday's meeting revealed that there are still many in the park who share Cleremont-Rebello's loathing for apartment living but disagree that it is necessary to close the park.
"I'm openly opposed to getting rid of the Spruces," Linda Chesbro said. "It's a horrible, horrible idea. To me it shows what a disposable society we've become."
Chesbro and a few others in the crowd argued that flooding problems at the park could be fixed, and she asserted that more people want to stay in the park than will say so publicly. Chesbro said some in the park are being "intimidated" into staying silent about their true desires.
 Veronika Riedel, left, said she was 'scared to death' to stay in the flood-prone mobile home park. |
The Rev. Sue Stewart has not been intimidated. She, like Chesbro, has been out front opposing the idea of closing the park since the FEMA grant application was first announced last November.
On Friday, Stewart said she has seen no evidence that the flood-prone park has been adequately studied. And she joined a sizable minority of residents calling publicly on town officials to investigate flood mitigation measures.
"No matter where we live, there will always be safety issues," Stewart said.
For others in the park, the safety issues at the Spruces make their homes unliveable, no matter how loveable they have found the retirement community.
"My reason to want to move to another place is not that I don't like it here," Margaret Harwood said. "At the moment, it's pretty scary. If I could stay here, I'd stay here in a heartbeat.
"I don't want to wait until, God forbid, there's another storm and someone dies to bring it to a head."
Veronika Riedel shares Harwood fears.
"I don't want to stay here," she said. "I'm scared to death.
"What are 10 1/2 acres of land, I beg you?" Riedel asked, referring to the amount of Lowry proposed for development in an April town meeting article that ultimately was shelved.
"Isn't there enough heart in this town to give us a little bit of land so we can live out the rest of our lives in peace?"
Tags: affordable housing, Spruces,
