Spruces Housing Group Hopes to Clarify Park's Fate
 The Long-Term Coordinating Committee changed its name to the shorter and topically clearer Spruces Roof Group. |
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The committee charged with overseeing the town's efforts to relocate the residents of the Spruces Mobile Home Park has a simpler name but still faces myriad complex issues.
On Monday, the committee, conceived this spring as the Long-term Coordinating Committee, voted unanimously to change its name to the Spruces Roof Group.
The group also clarified its objectives, which in the near term include settling once and for all the question of whether the park can continue to be a site for mobile homes.
To that end, the group's July 15 meeting will include a discussion with Mark Stinson of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, which has jurisdiction over development in or modifications to a flood plain.
On Monday night, two members of the panel spoke in favor of considering the continued use of the Spruces site for housing.
Planning Board Chairwoman Ann McCallum said there was a group of residents in town who were investigating whether up to 3 acres of dry land could be utilized from the 114-acre park, most of which is in a flood plain.
"I'm not sure there is 3 acres not in the flood plain, but a group of people in town have asked a site engineer to look at that," McCallum said. "If there is room to put some number of houses, that might be a way to have our cake and eat it, too."
McCallum said the residents she talked to have hired an engineer from Pittsfield's Foresight Land Services to take a look at the Spruces site.
"My impression is that the entire site is in a flood plain of some type," Affordable Housing Committee Chairwoman Catherine Yamamoto said. "If someone could show us otherwise, I'd love to hear it."
McCallum noted that if the town did pursue a course that included putting housing on the Spruces site, it would mean relinquishing the $6.13 federal Hazard Mitigation Grant the town and park owner Morgan Management have been awarded. One condition of the grant as written is that the land be returned to a natural state and not be used for housing of any kind.
Likewise, a proposal pitched Monday by Agricultural Commission Chairwoman Beth Phelps likely would mean forgoing the grant.
Phelps argued that most of the former 225-site park could be salvaged if the town returned to its natural state a brook that was covered and replaced with a culvert by the park's developer in the 1950s. Phelps distributed a map that she said shows how 143 housing sites could be created to the east of the former Bachand Brook, the "good side" of the park, according to Phelps.
Phelps' Ag Commission is on record as supporting affordable housing but opposing any plan that would include relocating Sprcues residents to a town-owned parcel currently being farmed off Stratton Road.
"So, this assumes we abandon the FEMA grant," Housing Authority Chairman Mark Reinhardt said as he looked at Phelps' proposal.
"Yes, unless we can renegotiate it," Phelps said. "I'm not convinced there's been enough engineering to toss away the idea of keeping people in the Spruces."
Affordable Housing Trust Chairman Stanley Parese said he was not convinced there is a way to solve the park's longstanding flooding problem, which came to a head during 2011's Tropical Storm Irene. But he said he would be willing to listen to an engineer who had a solution, particularly in light of the wish expressed by many Spruces residents to stay in the park.
"I would be very surprised if (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) gave us money to keep people in a flood plain or the flood way," Parese said.
 Bilal Ansari of Higher Ground, left, spoke on the planned housing project on land donated by Williams College. |
The chairman of the Selectmen shared Parese's skepticism.
"I think the [FEMA] grant would be in jeopardy because the grant is to move the residents out of harm's way," Jane Allen said. "I'm not sure we can split the property up. But it's something that should be asked."
While ultimately FEMA would decide whether the town could "reopen" the grant application, the DEP's Stinson could at least explain what development is and is not allowed in a 100-year flood plain, Conservation Commission Chairman Hank Art said.
Yamamoto, who has served on the Affordable Housing Committee since just before Irene and volunteered with the non-profit, Higher Ground, created in the storm's wake, expressed the hope that Stinson could provide some finality to the question of "saving" the Spruces.
"Whoever we can bring to talk to us to put this issue to rest as soon as possible, we need to do that," Yamamoto said. "Some (Spruces residents) have accepted the idea that they have to leave. Some are still clinging to the idea of staying.
"We need to resolve this issue. Whoever we need to bring in to do that — definitely, we need to do it."
The committee also at its July 15 meeting plans to sit down with Berkshire Housing Development Corp. President Elton Ogden.
Ogden's group is one of the developers signed on to partner with Higher Ground on the development of a nearly 4-acre parcel of land being donated by Williams College.
The committee on Monday, in its continuing effort to gather input from a variety of sources, met with Higher Ground's President Bilal Ansari and case management supervisor Susan Puddester to learn about the group's activities.
Ansari said Higher Ground's annual meeting, also scheduled for July 15, will feature a discussion with Berkshire Housing and Boston-based developer the Women's Institute about the timeline for developing the college-donated land.
McCallum asked whether Higher Ground's success in securing land for an undetermined number of subsidized housing units takes the pressure off the town to address the housing question.
"I have a feeling that our committee no longer needs to meet if you're many steps ahead of us," McCallum said. "You've got a site, a non-controversial site. You've got people helping you to develop it and fund it. And I presume you'll build something the Spruces people would want to move to."
Ansari said the Higher Ground development may appeal to some Spruces residents, but it may not be attractive to all of the 66 households currently at the park — not to mention the 155 households displaced in the immediate aftermath of Irene. And no one is suggesting it would be large enough to accommodate both groups.
"There's not one monolithic group (of Spruces residents) that says, 'We want this,'" Ansari said. "It's a community, and the needs of the community are varied. This is the community we're trying to house, and we may be able to house a good portion of them but not all of them."
Note: Susan Puddester's status with Higher Ground was incorrect in an earlier version of this story
Tags: affordable housing, FEMA, Higher Ground, Spruces,
