Williamstown Housing Trust Gets Update on Production Plan
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The board of the town’s Affordable Housing Trust Tuesday took a look at some of the data that will form the basis of a Housing Production Plan being developed for the body by the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission.
"This is the most recent and updated U.S. Census data as well as [Massachusetts] Department of Revenue data related to housing," BRPC’s Brett Roberts told the board. "I’m not going to ask you to digest it all in the next 15 minutes. I want you to take it home, mark it up with your red pencils. There are going to be format changes. There are going to be language changes. All of that.
"But what I want you to look at is really the data itself. What strikes you as something important to pull you? What are some things you want to highlight?"
Roberts told the trustees that the most interesting part to him was the data detailing Williamstown’s affordability gap.
He pointed out that the median household income in town is $108,500, at which the household could afford a home that costs about $348,000.
"Then we looked at what is actually on the market," Roberts said. "In May 2026, the average sales price of a single-family home [in Williamstown] was $494,704. The gap between what is in the world and what your median household income can afford, we call the affordability gap.
"We talk about how expensive homes are. This gives you a number to point to as, ‘This is what the gap is.’ "
On the other hand, Roberts said, the data shows that Williamstown has seen housing inventory rise at a higher rate than its peer communities.
"It looks like you had a lot of activity early in the [21st] century," he said. "You had the post-recession lull and then a lot of activity after 2020. … You can see the first part of the last 25 years is all single-family homes, and then you see this huge jump where you’re building a lot of units, basically, which is great.
"If you turn to Page 25, building permits by units in Williamstown versus Berkshire County as a whole, you’re building more multi-family housing than almost anyone in the county. In 2019, you had 56 percent of the new units in Berkshire County. You do not have 56 percent of the population."
In terms of the Housing Production Plan, Roberts said that the town should keep that momentum going while making sure to preserve Williamstown’s existing character.
The next step in developing the plan is doing community outreach, a phase that Roberts and the BRPC are targeting for August.
In the meantime, the members of the AHT Board had some questions about the data collected so far.
Thomas Sheldon noted that the numbers currently being presented show a 20 percent increase in the town’s population from 2020 to 2024.
"It doesn’t comport with either the recent past or the projections," Sheldon said. "Something is odd."
Roberts agreed, explaining that the 2024 number comes from the federal government’s American Communities Survey, which has a different methodology than the decennial census.
"The reason we use the American Communities Survey data is that’s what the state requires us to use," said Roberts, who said he triple-checked the number in question because of the apparent discrepancy. "That number is not in line with the projections the Donohue Institute at UMass did. I think that is some sort of outlier in the 2024 data. But it is the data we have to include in the plan."
Cheryl Shanks asked Roberts how the census data accounts for the Williams College student population.
Roberts said he is trying to get a handle on that himself.
"Based on what I understand … depending on how the student wants to be counted in the census is how they show up in the census data," he said. "When I was in college, I got a census form in my university mailbox, which I assume happens here. But I didn’t fill that out because my mom told me she claimed me at home.
"What I’d like to add to this data is Williams’ enrollment data. I’m sure the census captures that somehow, but I don’t have a clear answer on that. It should be part of our conversation."
That conversation will continue next month. On Tuesday, the Affordable Housing Trust board began a conversation about a 14-year-old town expenditure.
In 2012, at about the same time the town was establishing the AHT, the Affordable Housing Committee was busy trying to find a way to build subsidized housing on two town-owned properties: 59 Water St. and 330 Cole Ave.
The latter, the former Photech Mill property, eventually was awarded to a development group that included Berkshire Housing Development Corp. (now Hearthway), which renovated the existing mill building and built townhome-style apartments on the Cole Avenue site.
The former site of the town garage was eventually taken off the table for potential affordable housing by the town’s Select Board.
But while 59 Water St. still was a potential site for housing, the Affordable Housing Committee engaged Springfield engineering firm O’Reilly, Talbot and Okun to do soil testing at the site, where the town ended up excavating and disposing off-site "petroleum-impacted soils."
The town paid $13,350 to O’Reilly, Talbot and Okun with the intended purpose of making the land in question fit for housing.
Now that the vacant lot is, instead, going to be home to Williams College’s facilities department, the trustees are wondering if that money, originally allocated for affordable housing, could be returned to the trust to support its work to increase affordable options for an economically diverse population.
Sheldon said he made some preliminary inquiries at town hall but had not gotten a response. Nate Budington, who on Tuesday attended his first meeting of the trust board since taking the Select Board’s seat on the body, said that he would ask the town manager about it.
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