Letter: Williamstown Planning Board Proposals
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To the Editor:
Has the elected Williamstown Planning Board amassed ANY data before making its radical town meeting proposals?
The architect behind the 1/3 reduction in lot frontage appears to be Chris Winters who is running for re-election to a five-year term. Much damage can be done in five years. What is the source for this reduced frontage plan? A yes vote will create "Williamstown Lite."
If these scary Planning Board proposals pass, they will be with us forever, before the town's new Master Plan is completed and paid for.
Since the Planning Board has no clue whether these proposals will create any affordable housing, the town meeting vote should not use the governor's new majority vote rule for passage and all articles should require a two-thirds vote. It will, however, take a two-thirds vote to repeal them.
Town meeting has long been broken and the Planning Board proposals should be on the ballot at the annual town election. Few citizens attend town meeting compared to annual election voters.
How will these proposals affect property values, assessments, and taxes? It could be weeks, months, or years before anyone knows.
Let's look at an ideal 20-home street in the GR zone. Currently, each has exactly 100 feet of frontage. The two registered voters in the household feel confident that Williamstown Lite will not apply to their street and they vote yes at the town meeting. No new lots will be created. However, more than frontage dimensions were reduced. A neighbor builds an enclosed porch in front of their house which extends to 20 feet from the street. Now, it becomes more difficult to see oncoming traffic when pulling of the driveway. Roads have speeders, blind hills, and curves. Another neighbor builds a two-story garage 10 feet away which enables them to see into our bedroom windows, and it blocks the morning sun that used to wash our windows. Dang! Then, two adjacent houses get sold and a developer razes them and builds three houses all of which are within the new, reduced 10-foot side lot requirements. We turn off our Wi-Fi when not in use; neighbor runs theirs 24/7. Maybe we should have voted against Williamstown Lite. We thought we were immune from any reduction in our quality of life.
Do people who work in Williamstown really want to live in Williamstown? Why? To pay higher taxes and get less housing value?
On Route 2 at 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. watch many Williamstown residents drive daily to North Adams, and many North Adams residents drive to Williamstown to work. Then conduct the following survey of Williams College, Williamstown town employees, and Mount Greylock school district employees: compile a listing of residential ZIP codes of all the employees of each of these three entities. An awakening?
Key U.S. census figures for Williamstown for 2020 and 2010 respectively? Median household income (2015-19) is $83,911. (Mean is higher). Population is 7,513 and was 7,754. Time travelled to work = 15.2 minutes.
Ken Swiatek
Williamstown, Mass.
