The Selectmen on Tuesday committed $2.6 million to a senior housing project from the grant tied to the Spruces Mobile Home Park.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Selectmen on Tuesday committed the town to contribute $2.6 million to support a senior housing project and discussed the upcoming special town meeting that will decide whether the town has the money to support that commitment.

 

The $2.6 million was promised to the non-profits developing affordable housing on a parcel of land off Southworth Street being donated by Williams College.

 

The Board of Selectmen intends to appropriate that money from the remainder of a federal Hazard Mitigation Grant that the town and Morgan Management sought for the purpose of closing the Spruces Mobile Home Park.

 

According to estimates by the town manager, the town expects to have about $3 million to devote to replacement housing after the current residents of the park are compensated, the park's infrastructure is dismantled and Morgan Management receives $600,000 from the $6.1 million federal grant.

 

Of course, that is contingent on the town following through on its role outlined in the grant and accompanying agreement with Rochester, N.Y.,-based Morgan Management, which owns the park.

 

That is where a planned Dec. 10 special town meeting comes in.

 

On that date, the board hopes to ask the town for — among other things — the authorization to acquire that part of the Spruces property that lies within Williamstown's borders.

 

Town Manager Peter Fohlin at Tuesday's meeting was asked what would happen if the town rejected the notion of acquiring the land.

 

"That action would not be particularly relevant to [the Federal Emergency Management Agency]," Fohlin said. "The town would have the option, the Board of Selectmen would have the option, of going forward on the basis that Morgan Management would issue a closure notice for the park, that the town as the subgrantee would still have its obligation under the grant to find alternative housing for the residents of the Spruces, and Morgan Management would receive the benefit, not of $600,000, but $4.7 million, and, at the end, Morgan Management would have to find someone to accept a conservation restriction on the property — someone like the Trustees of Reservations, the town of Williamstown or Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation.

 

"We would have a lot of work to do over the next two years and legal obligations to the tenants of the park and nothing to show for it in the end.

 

"Or, the other option is for the Board of Selectmen to reject the grant and send it back, which is why we have not spent a dime of the grant money yet. Everything is in tact and returnable."

 

If that were to happen, more than likely Morgan would end up closing the park on its own without the grant money, since the company is on record in court documents saying the park is not financially viable at its current occupancy rate.

 

On the other hand, if voters OK the land acquisition at the special town meeting, the town can proceed with the commitment it pledged on Tuesday to back a project that developers say is being encouraged by state financing authorities.

 

Mollye Wolahan of the Boston-based Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development and Elton Ogden of Pittsfield's Berkshire Housing Development Corp. discussed the progress of the project they are pursuing along with Williamstown non-profits Higher Ground and the Williamstown Elderly Housing Corp.

 

Wolahan told the Selectmen the $2.6 million represents a sizable portion of the projected $12 million budget to build 40 units of affordable senior housing, and the sizable town contribution would demonstrate local support of the project to state funding agencies.

 

Wolahan and Ogden both said they thought an ambitious timeline of completion by early 2016 — in time to accommodate some soon to be displaced Spruces residents — is attainable.

 

Mollye Wolahan of the Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development said the state has taken an interest in the housing project.

"[The Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development] has taken an interest in us," Wolahan said. "They'd like to meet with us monthly. This is an amazing story and a unique story in terms of all the funding requests the state is getting.

 

"There is a critical need in Williamstown for senior affordable housing. We have a timeline we need to meet to help those at the Spruces who want to stay here stay here. ... That's an amazingly compelling story to tell the state to get them to partner with us."

 

Wolahan said the average time elapsed from start to finish on a project for the Women's Institute is 4.7 years. From the date of this project's announcement, June 20, to the projected completion, March 2016, would be a little less than three years.

 

"I feel like it's tight, but we have really good people working on it, therefore, it's achievable," Ogden said.

And Fohlin indicated that the $2.6 million town contribution seems achievable as well.

"One can't be totally comfortable when unknowns are involved," Fohlin said in response to a question from Selectman Tom Sheldon. "I'm comfortable with the size of the request. It doesn't cause me to warn the Board of Selectmen that this might be a little too ambitious."

Fohlin said the under the terms of the agreement with Morgan Management, the town will be receiving enough money to plan for $3 million to spend on replacement housing after taking into account a $600,000 contingency fund to cover unplanned expenses while closing the park.

"If Mollye is talking $2.6 million instead of $3 million, then we have $1 million in contingency funds to work with," Fohlin said.

Selectmen Ronald Turbin asked whether the town should keep the door open for greater contributions to the Higher Ground-led project if those contingencies do not arise.

Selectman David Rempell, who made the initial motion, countered that there may be other proposals for housing that come along and might benefit from any funds left from the FEMA grant.

 

"The need is greater even than this exciting proposal," Rempell said.

The request from Wolahan and Ogden referenced 40 units of housing on the nearly 4-acre parcel promised by the college. Higher Ground and its partners are in the process of developing designs for the project in an effort to get its proposal before the town's Zoning Board.

Although that is not enough housing to accommodate the 66 current households at the Spruces — let alone the 153 homes lost in the wake of 2011's Tropical Storm Irene — it is a start.

And two years after the storm, it is the affordable housing project in town that has gained the most traction. The town-led efforts to develop housing on the former sites of the Town Garage (Water Street) and PhoTech Mill (Cole Avenue) are just moving into the request for proposal (RFP) stage. A town proposal to develop "cottage" style housing or something similar on the town-owned Lowry property off Stratton Road was successfully beaten back by a coalition of neighbors and environmentalists.

It is unclear how many current and former Spruces residents will want to live in the Southworth Street development, which will be more densely developed than the mobile home park and likely will not give each resident his or her "own four walls." And it is unknown to what extent developers will be able to give preference two former or current Spruces residents.

"We would work with the state to see what can be worked out for a preference," Wolahan said.
Wolahan said the non-profit partners have engaged an attorney to help them draft language to allow preference to Spruces residents, and Ogden said there also is a DHCD attorney looking into the question.

 

In other business on Tuesday, the board decided to adopt a provision under the attorney general's regulations allowing remote participation in public meetings of town boards and committees.

 

Williamstown School Committee Chairwoman Valerie Hall asked the board to consider allowing such participation given the number of times committee members have been unable to attend her meetings because of work commitments that take them out of town.

 

Under the attorney general's guidelines, a quorum of members of any panel must be physically in the room for business to be conducted, but some number less than a quorum can participate by telephone if the town permits the practice.

 

The Selectmen adopted the provision allowing boards in town to allow remote participation if they choose (individual committees can opt out) with the following restrictions: the cost of remote participation, like long-distance phone bills, are the responsibility of the remote participant; committee members only can participate remotely once for every five meetings held by a committee on a rolling basis.

 

In other words, if a committee member participates remotely in a Nov. 13 meeting, he or she would not be eligible to do so again until after the committee has met four more times.