Williamstown CPC Again Sees More Requests than Funds Available
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).
• Williamstown Affordable Housing Trust: $170,000 to support community housing in town (unrestricted funds not tied to specific project).
• Mount Greylock Regional School District: $100,000 to complete asphalt walkways and purchase mobile bleachers for the recently opened field and track at Mount Greylock Regional School (2.3 percent of project cost).
• Sand Springs Pool and Recreation Center: $59,500 to purchase 10-person cedar hot tub and convert the former pool house to a 16-person sauna and make safety improvements at the facility (100 percent of project cost).
• Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation: $25,000 to make improvements to improve safety and sanitation at the Sheep Hill interpretive center (89 percent of project cost).
• Images Cinema: $20,323 toward the historic preservation and renovation of the "historic lobby" and "newly renovated lobby" of the Spring Street movie house (33 percent of project cost).
• Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation: $7,700 to work toward a proposed pedestrian bridge over Hemlock Brook at Margaret Lindley Park (100 percent of project cost).
• Williamstown Historical Museum: $4,000 to restore and repair a late 19th-century doctor's buggy (80 percent of project cost).
Two applicants appear on two different grant requests: Williamstown Rural Lands, which has two applications of its own, and the town, which is named as a co-applicant by Purple Valley Trails, which plans a skate park on a town-owned parcel across the road from the Bud Anderson youth baseball field.
All but one applicant are seeking funds for a specific project. The outlier is the town's Affordable Housing Trust, which once again is seeking unrestricted funds to support various ongoing and potential projects, including its Richard DeMayo Mortgage Assistance Program, its emergency rental and mortgage initiatives and its support of a four-home Habitat for Humanity subdivision underway off Summer Street.
Town Hall is applying on its own for funds to support the renovation of the Broad Brook playground. Even though that project is in the planning phase with no known price tag, the town writes that its consultant recommends costs of around $750,000. As a result, the FY27 application includes a note that the CPC would see a grant for an equal amount ($250,000) in the FY28 funding cycle.
One applicant is seeking funds that previously were awarded by town meeting but were not expended before the standard two-year "sunset" provision that the CPC has included in town meeting articles for years. The Mount Greylock Regional School District was successful in 2023 in seeking $100,000 of CPA money toward a $4.4 million field and track project at the middle-high school.
The athletic facility is largely complete. But the district hopes to recoup the $100,000 to pay for additional asphalt walkways around the complex and mobile bleachers to be placed on a pad that was installed as part of the original project.
At Monday's Select Board meeting, Town Manager Robert Menicocci explained that the town's plan to seek $250,000 this year and another $250,000 next year is part of an approach to keep the two recreation projects (the playground and skate park) from "colliding."
"By cutting our request on the half million down to $250 [thousand], we could share roughly what's available on the recreation side for two big projects, get that money over to the skate park." Menicocci said. "It still leaves them a little short, potentially, but it still means their fund-raising isn't over. If we commit $200-$250,000 [in CPA money], that's a huge commitment from the community, and, hopefully, they would have folks on the fund-raising side want to step up and do that."
Likewise, Menicocci explained that a $250,000 commitment from town meeting for Broad Brook Park, with another $250,000 a year later, will demonstrate the kind of local match that could potentially free up state grants.
He said that while the playground project, unlike the skate park, is not "shovel ready," the cyclical nature of state grants means that the town needs to get its application into Boston — with the demonstration of local funding — this year in order to avoid waiting several more years to begin the renovation project.
"The skate park argument is you could have it tomorrow," Menicocci said. "I think we all would love that, but we know sometimes government takes a few extra days to get these sorts of things done.
"I think we have a reasonable plan to get both projects done and for the town to be able to work with the fund-raising efforts because they did fall short."
The "preview" of the Community Preservation Committee deliberations came up because Select Board member Peter Beck serves on the CPC. By law, the CPC needs to have a representative of a municipality's parks commission; in Williamstown, which does not have a separate body to oversee parks, the Select Board serves that function.
Following its 2002 adoption of the provisions of the Community Preservation Act, the town collects a 2 percent surcharge on property tax bills with the first $100,000 of a property's valuation exempted. The CPC each year reviews applications for CPA funds, which only can be used to support affordable housing, historic preservation or open space and recreation.
Tags: Community Preservation Act, CPA, recreation, skate park,
