Letter: Williamstown Needs to Change to Diversify Housing

Letter to the Editor01:00PM / Thursday, March 17, 2022Print Story | Email Story

To the Editor:

Williamstown cannot hope to become a community of diverse households while allowing only one type of house. Believing that it can relies on the notion that there are lots of folks just like the modal Williamstown household in key ways — affluent in income, two to five people in size, best suited to a three-bedroom house with a garage — yet are somehow, at the same time, in their 20s, and/or Black, interested in cohousing, and/or multigenerational households, physically disabled, and/or not car owners.

To diversify our community, we can hold our breath for several more decades, waiting for society to change, or we can act to change our housing stock today.

Sincerely yours,

Cheryl Shanks
Williamstown, Mass.

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Williamstown CPC Again Sees More Requests than Funds Available

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:04AM / Monday, January 19, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Community Preservation Committee will meet on Tuesday to begin considering grant applications for the fiscal year 2027 funding cycle.

As has been the case in recent years, the total of the requests before the committee far exceed the amount of Community Preservation Act funds the town anticipates for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

Nine applications totaling $1,003,434 are on the table for the committee's perusal. The committee previously has discussed a limit of $624,000 in available funds for this funding cycle, about 62 percent of the total sought.

Over the next few weeks, the CPC will decide the eligibility of the applicants under the CPA and make recommendations to May's annual town meeting, which approves the allocations. Only once since the town accepted the provisions of the 2000 act have meeting members rejected a grant put forward by the committee.

The nine applications for FY27, in descending order of magnitude, are:

• Purple Valley Trails (in conjunction with the town): $366,911 to build a new skate park on Stetson Road (49 percent of project cost).

• Town of Williamstown: $250,000 in FY 27 (with a promise of an additional $250,000 in FY28) to support the renovation of Broad Brook Park (total project cost still unknown).

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