Williamstown Land Use Group Seeking Ideas for Spruces Parcel
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The Spruces Land Use Committee is taking suggestions on what to do with the property. |
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The committee looking at how to reuse the Spruces Mobile Home Park property wants to solicit public input about alternative uses.
It also wants to make sure the public knows what sorts of uses would and would not be allowed under the regulations guiding the Hazard Mitigation Grant that will allow the town to acquire the 115-acre property.
In the next few months, the Spruces Land Use Committee will be distributing suggestion forms at locations around town, and it is already calling for input via a newly created e-mail address, sluc@williamstown.net.
But those forms will come with a letter outlining the regulations that govern use of the property, and the same list of "dos and don'ts," compiled by committee member Richard Schlesinger, will be posted on the committee's page of the town website, williamstown.ws.
Among the "don'ts" laid out in the committee's mission statement: "the construction of flood damage reduction levees, dikes, berms or floodwalls" and "walled buildings or manufactured homes, except public restrooms."
"Anyone who makes a proposal should review these so they know their proposal would be consistent with what the regulations call for and what would be disallowed," Chairman Thomas Hyde said.
The committee also plans to hold at least one well-publicized public hearing in the fall, about the time that the town would consider whether to accept possession of the park property -- a step that requires a vote of town meeting if the park residents decline to exercise their right of first refusal on the purchase of the park.
Also this fall, the SLUC will have some volunteer labor assisting them in their work of creating a recommendation for the Board of Selectmen.
At Wednesday's meeting, the committee voted to accept the offer of Williams College professor Sarah Gardner to assign students from her environmental planning class to work on behalf of the committee.
Gardner routinely uses real world "clients" to give her students experience with planning issues and political realities.
"This would be a perfect project for my class and it works well if you have a chunk of work that you would like to have done," said Gardner, who also serves the town on the Conservation Commission and the Agricultural Commission. "It could be a beneficial relationship. They learn something from being involved in the community process, and you get useful information as well."
Last fall, a group from her class worked on an open space and recreation plan for the North Adams, Gardner said.
She told the committee that it did not need to have a specific task in mind for the students until September, and generally the students devote about two months to the project beginning in October.
"You would be the client," she said. "They would do what you want."
While the land use committee continues looking at bike paths, playing fields, agricultural uses and other possible new activities on the Spruces plot, it recognized Wednesday that a small but passionate group of current mobile home park residents want to stay at the flood-prone site.
Schlesinger advised the committee that on Monday, July 15, the town's Spruces Roof Group ( formerly the Long-term Coordinating Committee) will meet with an official from the state Department of Environmental Protection to talk about what may or may not be permissable in the flood plain as far as flood mitigation is concerned. Any move to keep residences on the site would mean foregoing the $6 million FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant, which is conditioned on the permanent removal of housing.
The Spruces Land Use Committee, which held its third meeting on Wednesday, set a tentative date of Aug. 14 for its next meeting, which it hopes to begin with a walking tour of the Spruces property beginning at 4 p.m.
