Berkshire Village Owners Owes Cheshire Back Taxes

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
05:46AM / Monday, March 10, 2025Print Story | Email Story

CHESHIRE, Mass. — In addition to residents complaints about Berkshire Village's deteriorating condition, the mobile home park also owes the town roughly $21,000 in back taxes.

Town Administrator Jennifer Morse told the Board of Selectmen last week that she discovered tenants are paying $12 per month in personal property tax, which the ownership has not paid to the town for the past 18 months.

"According to the email that I was given, Berkshire Village only owes 18 months. Prior ownership was paying," Morse said.

The park's owners applied for a lodging permit with the health inspector, but Morse directed the inspector not to issue the permit until the town received payment.

"I have contacted ownership. I was able to get an email address and contacted ownership and let him know that this outstanding tax is due and that we need to have payment along with the $750 for their lodging permits as well," Morse said.

The owners are supposed to turn in a sheet showing tenancy and amounts to the tax collector and Board of Health monthly "instead of yearly, or however it's been billed in the past. I'm really not sure," she said.

"So, I did share that with him as well, and explained in my email what the process was, and asked him to call him so we could discuss, I have not heard from him yet."

In February, several Berkshire Village residents attended a board meeting to express their frustration with the mobile home park's unsafe conditions, citing issues with the septic system, outdated electric service, and unmaintained roads. More information here.

On Tuesday, Morse informed the board that she had met with the Attorney General's Office a couple of times because the office had received a resident complaint.

Additionally, the health inspector will work with the Board of Health and the state Department of Environmental Protection on the septic issues.

However, they can not do anything until the snow melts so they can get to the tanks and leach field to see what the status is, Morse said.

The wiring inspector has spoken with the management company's facilities person, and they will also visit in the spring because they will not be able to access the poles and electrical boxes until some of the snow melts, she said.

"I did get a petition today from the residents of Berkshire village. I just need to go over it with them again because it didn't have everything that it needed," Morse said.

Morse said Berkshire Village's tenants' association meeting was to hold its first meeting.

The residents have been coordinating with the Massachusetts Federation of Manufactured Home Communities in establishing the association.

Tags: mobile home park, property taxes,

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Letter: Progress Means Moving on Paper Mill Cleanup

Letter to the Editor05:00PM / Wednesday, February 11, 2026

To the Editor:

Our town is facing a clear choice: move a long-abandoned industrial site toward cleanup and productive use or allow it to remain a deteriorating symbol of inaction.

The Community Development team has applied for a $4 million EPA grant to remediate the former Curtis Mill property, a site that has sat idle for more than two decades. The purpose of this funding is straightforward: address environmental concerns and prepare the property for safe commercial redevelopment that can contribute to our tax base and economic vitality.

Yet opposition has emerged based on arguments that miss the point of what this project is designed to do. We are hearing that basement vats should be preserved, that demolition might create dust, and that the plan is somehow "unimaginative" because it prioritizes cleanup and feasibility over wishful reuse of a contaminated, aging structure.

These objections ignore both the environmental realities of the site and the strict federal requirements tied to this grant funding. Given the condition of most of the site's existing buildings, our engineering firm determined it was not cost-effective to renovate. Without cleanup, no private interest will risk investment in this site now or in the future.

This is not a blank check renovation project. It is an environmental remediation effort governed by safety standards, engineering assessments, and financial constraints. Adding speculative preservation ideas or delaying action risks derailing the very funding that makes cleanup possible in the first place. Without this grant, the likely outcome is not a charming restoration, it is continued vacancy, ongoing deterioration, and zero economic benefit.

For more than 20 years, the property has remained unused. Now, when real funding is within reach to finally address the problem, we should be rallying behind a practical path forward not creating obstacles based on narrow or unrealistic preferences.

I encourage residents to review the proposal materials and understand what is truly at stake. The Adams Board of Selectmen and Community Development staff have done the hard work to put our town in position for this opportunity. That effort deserves support.

Progress sometimes requires letting go of what a building used to be so that the community can gain what it needs to become.

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