Williamstown Nears Deal to Acquire Spruces
 The Selectmen on Monday made several reappointments and voted to increase the size of the Public Safety Building Committee to include a representative of the Police Association. |
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town and Morgan Management have reached a tentative agreement for transfer of the Spruces Mobile Home Park, and that means residents soon will have to decide whether they will exercise their right of first refusal.
At Monday's Selectmen's meeting, Town Manager Peter Fohlin laid out a very broad framework that conceivably could put to voters this fall the question of whether the town would accept ownership.
The first step on that road, Fohlin explained, is getting both the park's Rochester, N.Y.,-based owner and the town to sign off on an agreement hammered out Monday in a conference call involving the town, Morgan Management and a representative from the attorney general's office, which represents residents under the commonwealth's Manufactured Housing Community Law.
"It would seem the attorneys for the town and Morgan Management have reached an agreement for conveying the park," Fohlin said.
What the terms of conveyance will be remain to be determined. Fohlin said he favors a friendly eminent domain "taking" of the 115-acre mobile home park, but it could be a purchase agreement.
Once the details are hammered out, Morgan will send the residents a certfied letter notifying them of its intent to sell the park, where residents own their own homes but lease the sites from Morgan.
Included in that letter will be information about the residents' right of first refusal. They will have 45 days from receipt of that letter, to match the $600,000 amount which Morgan will be compensated out of the federal Housing Migation Grant that is underwriting the town's acquisition of the park.
If 51 percent of the residents decide to purchase the park — or convey their right of first refusal to a third party who intends to buy the park — the deal between Morgan and the town is null and void.
If 51 percent of the residents do not take that step within a 45-day window — or if a vote to exercise the right of first refusal fails sooner than 45 days — then the town would have the right to acquire the park.
And that, Fohlin explained, can only be done by town meeting.
If and when that day comes, the town would be required under the terms of the Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to close the park, a move that would require a two-year notification to the residents.
"The town would be the one to issue the letter of discontinuance to the residents," Fohlin said. "But the town cannot issue a letter of discontinuance until we have ownership of the park, and we can't have ownership until the voters of Williamstown vote to take possession.
"Some people are anxious to go. Some people will move sooner. Others will move later. But we can't require anyone to leave the park until two years from — October, just for conversation's sake. That would be October 2015."
That October date is based on a hypothetical special town meeting that would need to be called if and when the Spruces residents' 45-day window for right of first refusal closes without an offer to buy the park.
The other date hanging over the whole process is March 28, 2016. That is the current deadline for the town completing the closure of the park and returning the land to its natural state (i.e., without the infrastracture needed to support housing).
"What's called the performance period of the grant is from March 29 to March 28 of 2016," Fohlin said. "I spoke with (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) last week about changing those dates, and the woman I spoke with said the end date can be changed at the end (of the performance period), but it can't be changed at the beginning. So we have to get closer to March of 2016."
 Town Manager Peter Fohlin explained the time table for the acquisition of the Spruces. |
Fohlin told the Selectmen the town will want to consider using a portion of the $6.13 million grant to hire a consultant to help find "decent, safe and sanitary housing" for Spruces residents displaced by the park's closure. The town has a legal obligation under the grant to offer at least one housing option to each current resident, and MEMA suggested the town hire a specialist to help with that part of the process.
In other action on Monday, the board voted unanimously to increase the size of the town's recently created Public Safety Building Committee to include a representative of the Williamstown Police Association, the collective bargaining unit that represents the town's full-time police officers.
"We feel we could provide a valuable point of view," Police Sgt. Scott McGowan told the Selectmen.
The board also completed the annual task of making reappointments to several town committees, approved two special one-day temporary liquor licenses for the Williamstown Theatre Festival and heard a presentation from the COOL Committee's Wendy Penner about the Solarize Mass program.
Penner took time out from the solar energy program's meeting next door at the Williams Inn to plug the project before the Selectmen and its audience on the town's community access television station.
Penner reported there was a crowd of about 70 at the meeting next door, including several dozen new households. She announced Solarize Mass will hold an open house on Monday, June 17, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the 10 Bridges Road home of Joelle Brookner and Tom Welch, and she promised more efforts throughout the summer to promote the program.
"Hopefully, we'll be hitting you over the head with information," Penner said.
Tags: police station, solar, Spruces,
