Letter: Bilal for Williamstown Select Board

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To the Editor:

I am writing to urge Williamstown voters to elect Bilal Ansari to the Williamstown Select Board on Tuesday, May 10. Dr. Ansari has dedicated himself to a life of service, to helping people resolve difficult situations. He listens intently and responds carefully with compassion. He appeals to our best nature. These are essential skills needed at this moment in our town.

Dr. Ansari does not believe that he alone has the solutions to all of the challenges facing our town. Instead, he wants to hear from those comfortable speaking up and also those who, until now, have not felt comfortable nor heard at all. He believes it will take a village to share concerns and work together to make Williamstown a better place for everyone to live and work and grow. But making that happen takes a special type of skilled leadership.

Bilal Ansari is the candidate blessed with that skilled leadership and a stake in our town's quality of life. He has deep roots in this town: his ancestors lived and worked here. He is committed to an approach based in kindness and inclusion. He is the candidate who can and will help us reach a new, inclusive and more equitable chapter in our town's history.

I ask for your vote on May 10 for Bilal Ansari for the Williamstown Select Board. Thank you.

 

Hugh L Guilderson, Ph.D.
Williamstown, Mass.

 

 

 


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Williamstown Planning Board Asks for Seasonal Communities Designation, Talks Tiny Homes

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board this month voted unanimously to recommend that the Select Board ask town meeting to accept the provisions of the provisions of the commonwealth's Seasonal Communities law.
 
If town meeting members agree at the May 19 annual town meeting, the town would have the ability to take steps to allow or create workforce housing, and it would give the town the ability to compete for grants to support year-round housing.
 
The tradeoff is that, under the terms of the Seasonal Communities program, Williamstown would need to enact zoning bylaws that allow the construction of residential housing on undersized lots, provided it is not used as a seasonal home or short-term rental "of less than six months." And the town would be required to enact zoning that permits so-called "tiny houses" of 400 square feet or less in floor area — again, only to be used as year-round housing.
 
The town would have two years to enact the zoning changes through subsequent town meetings while enjoying the benefits of the Seasonal Communities program from Day 1 if adopted at the May meeting.
 
The Legislature enacted the Seasonal Communities program to help communities address housing needs when those municipalities meet certain characteristics, including when "excessive disparities between the area median income and the income required to purchase the municipality's median home price," according to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (formerly the Department of Housing and Community Development).
 
The Seasonal Communities program initially was targeted at towns on Cape Cod, where the inaccessibility of workforce housing has been a concern for decades. More recently, the EOHLC has designated some towns in Berkshire County as eligible for the Seasonal Communities designation.
 
The Planning Board at its March 10 meeting voted 4-0 (with Cory Campbell absent) to recommend the Select Board agree at its Monday, March 23, meeting to put the Seasonal Communities question on the annual town meeting warrant.
 
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