The Affordable Housing Trust and Committee held a joint meeting on Tuesday night.

The debate over development of the Lowry land has divided the town.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — There was a markedly conciliatory tone to much of Tuesday's meeting of the town bodies looking at the issue of affordable housing.

But when the discussion ended, the only business on the table highlighted the deep divide the topic has brought out over the last five months.

The Affordable Housing Trust and Affordable Housing Committee held a joint meeting at Town Hall to review the status of several projects under consideration and make recommendations to a special town meeting on a pair of warrant articles related to one of those proposed housing developments.

The well-attended meeting elicited comments from residents on both sides of the question of whether any development should take place on a town-owned parcel off Stratton Road known as the Lowry property.

And many of the comments — from the floor and the panel — lamented the fact that neighbors of that property have not been consulted about the prospect of building subsidized housing on green space, much of which is in agriculture.

Several members of the town boards said they would have preferred to put the question of taking part of the Lowry parcel out of conservation after more information was available. But a petitioner's request asking to elevate the conservation status of both Lowry and a much larger town-owned parcel known as the Burbank property forced a special town meeting for April 24.

And it compelled the trust and committee to vote their positions on the two contentious issues to be put before the town in three weeks' time.

Predictably, the trust board voted unanimously to recommend (Article 2) that the town release 10 acres of the Lowry property from control of the Conservation Commission and allow its development exclusively for affordable housing. And the trust unanimously declined to recommend the competing Article 3 — the petitioner's request — asking that Lowry and Burbank be placed in conservation in perpetuity.

The committee's votes were nearly identical, with one exception. Committee member Bilal Ansari abstained from the second vote after joining his colleagues in voting to recommend passage of Article 2 on the special town meeting warrant.

Ansari was one of those who said the questions were coming to a vote before the town held a community conversation on Lowry.

"I really dislike to the core having to vote like this," Ansari said as his committee considered the warrant articles. "The conversation we were just having was better than watching the New York Knicks and the Miami Heat right now. This [vote], I can't stand it. I feel forced. It is politics at its worst. It's not the best we can do.

"There's so much tension in this town, you can cut it with a knife, and it pains me," Ansari said at another point during the meeting.

Charleen Blood, a resident of the Spruces, said it was time to move on.

Stratton Hills Condominium resident Suzanne Kemple expressed her sympathy for the residents who would be served by a potential development at Lowry and her concern for the larger need for affordable housing in town. But she questioned some of the specifics of the concepts under consideration for the site and more importantly a process that she feels has excluded abutters.

"You don't have to take everything people tell you, but you need to have everyone at the table," Kemple said. "You could have acknowledged that you heard us. ... You don't have to knock on any of our doors, ... but talk to us. All of us care about the Spruces people, too. I would welcome them in our building. But we do care about the Lowry because we feel it's a very important spot."

While acknowledging that her situation does not compare to the emotional toll on residents of the Spruces Mobile Home Park who might one day find alternative housing on the Lowry property, Kemple talked about the toll the debate has taken on her.

"[Since November], I don't sleep," she said. "I think about this all the time. I have imaginary conversations with people because that's how important this pristine piece of land is and how little people value it."

Affordable Housing Trust Chairman Stanley Parese apologized that more real-world conversations had not taken place about the possibility of developing Lowry.

The property has been the subject of development talks in town for years. But it came sharply into focus after a Nov. 13 announcement by Town Manager Peter Fohlin that the town was seeking a $6 million Federal Emergency Management Grant — some of which the town intends to use for site prep in advance of a housing development at Lowry.

The town has since been informed by FEMA that it will get the grant, news that only has heightened the stakes for the April 24 special town meeting.

One of the remaining residents at the Spruces spoke at Tuesday's meeting in support of the town's intention to develop a community of single-family homes at Lowry. Charlene Blood told the board — and an audience that included former selectman and Stratton Road resident Kenneth Swiatek — that if she thought there was a chance the park could be saved she would "be fighting my butt off to save it."

But while Blood sympathizes with a small group of residents who joined Swiatek on Monday to make a bid for town funds as seed money for a tenants cooperative, she disagreed with their aim.

"It's an emotional time for us," Blood said. "I can understand, and I do sympathize with them. But logically, I can't support them. I have to support what I think is logically correct, and that is moving on."

Blood also said she hopes the tension that Ansari cited can be reduced so the town can move forward to replace some of the housing lost at the park after 2011's Tropical Storm Irene.

"There is one thing I know some people are afraid of: The grant has to be fulfilled in three years," Blood said, referring to the condition of the grant that the town assume ownership of the the park and demolish it.

"People are afraid that in three years, there won't be housing for us. That's a big fear for people. ... If instead of fighting constantly over land, you try to find a solution, housing will come sooner."

More information on this meeting to be posted on Wednesday.

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