WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Conservation Commission has decided to move ahead with a plan to ask town meeting to place the Spruces Park property under the panel's "care, custody, management and control."

 

On a vote of 6-0, the commissioners OK'd draft warrant article language about the 114-acre former Spruces Mobile Home Park at 60 Main St. (Route 2).

 

It also unanimously decided to continue working on an article for town meeting that would expand the commission's authority over wetlands and water resources not currently covered under the commonwealth's Wetlands Protection Act.

 

The Spruces Park is a former mobile home park that came into the town's possession in 2013, two years after Tropical Storm Irene, as part of a hazard mitigation grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

 

Under the FEMA agreement, the town bought out park owner Morgan Management and residents received federal relocation assistance. As part of the agreement, FEMA placed stringent development restrictions on the property, currently used for passive recreation — including an unpaved portion of the town's Mohican Trail — and agriculture.

 

The article discussed by the commission last Thursday would ask town meeting, possibly as soon as May 2024, to take action similar to other properties under the Con Comm's control, including the Lowry property, in the commission's hands since a 1987 town meeting.

 

"The Spruces would be akin to the management partnerships that are already caring for Margaret Lindley Park and other areas," said Cory Campbell, who served on a working group that drafted the warrant article.

 

"We would have the management authority, but there would be shared responsibility in terms of undertaking specific tasks on the property."

 

Phil McKnight thanked Campbell and the working group for composing the warrant article.

 

"I agree with Cory that, since we already manage nine properties that have come to us through town meeting action, all of which require us to manage those properties for conservation and recreation purposes, the Spruces Park management warrant article is right in line with what we're already doing for the nine other properties," McKnight said. "It fits neatly in with what we're responsible for."

 

Campbell pointed out that with water, riverfront area, bordering vegetative wetlands and land susceptible to flooding, most of the Spruces Park already is jurisdictional to the commission under the Wetland Protection Act.

 

McKnight noted that the commission likely will face questions from residents leading up to the annual town meeting and at the May session.

 

"When we get to town meeting, the kinds of questions we can anticipate are, 'If we do this, can still walk our dogs [in the park]?' " McKnight said. "They're going to want the nitty gritty of, ‘Do we want to build things? Will FEMA allow that?' We'll get a lot of questions. We need to be prepared for them."

 

And it is just one article that the Conservation Commission might bring to the May meeting.

 

The commissioners also discussed an 11-page warrant article that seeks to "protect the wetlands, water resources, and adjoining land areas in the Town of Williamstown by regulating activities deemed by the Conservation Commission likely to have a significant or cumulative adverse effect upon resource areas values."

 

Specifically, the Home Rule legislation would address resources not covered by the WPA, including vernal pools, intermittent streams and isolated vegetative wetlands.

 

State law defines vernal pools as "confined basin depressions which, at least in most years, hold water for a minimum of two continuous months during the spring and/or summer," according to the draft warrant article. Intermittent streams are bodies of running water "that are observed not to be flowing for at least four days in a consecutive 12-month period," unless said observation takes place during a period of extreme drought.

 

The isolated vegetated wetlands addressed in the article are those wetlands not covered by the WPA because they are either too small or do not border another protected body of water. The draft article specifies isolated wetlands greater than 500 square feet, though that number is still being debated by the commissioners.

 

The article, if adopted, would give the Con Comm the same authority it has to prohibit or condition development near the identified bodies of water that it currently has over resources that are covered by the Wetlands Protection Act.

 

"Right now, vernal pools, if they're in the buffer zone [of a lake or river] are protected," Henry Art said. "But if they're five feet outside the buffer, they're not protected."

 

Con Comm Chair Lauren Stevens said the proposed bylaw expanding the commission's authority is in line with an objective delineated as 5.2 in the Planning Board's draft comprehensive plan: "Research ways to better protect vegetated buffers along intermittent streams, and vernal pools and isolated wetlands within the community. This process may identify regulatory or non-regulatory approaches that increase surface water and wetland protection locally."

 

As specified in the second paragraph of the lengthy draft bylaw, the Conservation Commission will "prepare and may amend from time to time" a map of wetlands that may be jurisdictional under the law.

 

"Because of the limitations of mapping technology, the jurisdictional areas on the map will be approximate and may need to be verified by field observations and measurements," the draft bylaw reads.

 

"The map is obviously going to need some field verification through [a request for determination of applicability] process," Art said at the meeting. "Just because something is on the map, it doesn't excuse a project going on without going through the process of determining whether there's an intermittent stream on the premises or a vernal pool."

 

But while the map is not the final say, the commissioners agreed that the map needs to be developed to show residents the impact of the potential bylaw before it is brought to town meeting.

 

"I don't think we can start trying to sell the wetlands bylaw until we have the map," Stevens said. "So that might have something to do with whether we're talking about [the 2024 annual town meeting] or not."

 

The commission did discuss holding a series of information sessions on both proposed articles leading up to town meeting.

 

Community Development Director Andrew Groff told the commission that the Spruces Park article would need a two-thirds majority for passage and that he believed the wetlands protection bylaw would need a simple majority for passage.