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Williamstown Planning Board Discusses Ideas for Less Restrictive Zoning
By Stephen Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
12:48PM / Thursday, August 13, 2015
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Planning Board members, from left, Amy Jeschawitz, Ann McCallum and Chris Winters debate the types of housing needed.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board on Tuesday continued to discuss whether and how it should propose easing the town's residential development regulations.
 
One of the areas the board is eyeing: new rules that would allow for more multifamily housing units.
 
"Since zoning was adopted in 1955, single-family homes have always been allowed, but multifamily housing has gotten more difficult to construct," Planning Board Chairwoman Amy Jeschawitz noted.
 
Jeschawitz pointed out that the last conventional multifamily development allowed in Williamstown was the Hemlock Brook complex in 1984.
 
In the last year alone, three multifamily developments have been permitted, but each was a special case: the Cable Mills overlay district on Water Street, the subsidized housing at Highland Woods and the mixed-use Mather House apartments on North Street.
 
As far as multifamily units in the town's residential district, the Planning Board's analysis shows that the current regulations may be overly restrictive.
 
"There is a provision to build multifamily new in general residence, but it has never been used because it is so cumbersome," Town Planner Andrew Groff told the board.
 
There was not unanimous sentiment among the three Planning Board members in attendance that the greatest need in town is for multifamily housing. Chris Winters argued there is also need for more reasonably priced single-family dwellings; Ann McCallum again came out strongly for multifamily units, including her oft-stated assertion that there is a market for pieds-a-terre to serve Williams College alumni eager to own a second home near their alma mater.
 
Jeschawitz struck a middle ground.
 
"I think there's a need for all levels of housing in our community," she said. "I think the people who speak the loudest are the alumni who have homes but want to downgrade to something smaller. But it depends on who you talk to.
 
"It's something we need to research.
 
"When you're young you start out with a small apartment ... then you get married and decide to have children. Then where do you go? If we want to keep those people in the community, we have to have something for them as well."
 
As part of its yearlong initiative on housing, the Planning Board has reached out to local real estate agents and is poring over the data compiled by the housing needs assessment commissioned two years ago by the town's Affordable Housing Committee.
 
In order to address the perceived need for multifamily residences, McCallum suggested some ambitious edits to the town's current regulations. Among other things, she proposed eliminating the requirements for minimum lot size, minimum frontage and "1,500 square feet of usable common open space per dwelling" currently required.
 
McCallum, an architect, showed her colleagues rough drawings to demonstrate how, for example, five two-story, 900-square foot condominiums could be sited on a hypothetical 8,100-square foot lot in the town's Village Business District.
 
McCallum argued for allowing more dense development of that district in order to help drive economic development, citing a study that showed people who live in walking distance to downtown shopping spend 60 percent more at downtown merchants than those who do not.
 
The board also discussed whether such multifamily developments should be encouraged outside the town center.
 
"I think we need diversity not only of housing types but housing location," Winters said. "People of all stripes and types appreciate rural living as much as in-town living."
 
McCallum noted there could be resistance to encouraging development in some parts of town.
 
"I think the beautiful rural character is what gives our town its income right now," she said. "If people imagine ugly condominium buildings going up and despoiling our beautiful countryside, they may not want this. That's my big concern."
 
Winters that fear of development runs counter to the Planning Board's objective.
 
"That line of argument is perfectly rational, though taken to its logical extreme, that argument is: no development, lock the gate, keep everyone out, limit supply, thus driving up everyone's value," he said. "That's the exact M.O. we've had since the acceptance of zoning."
 
The board agreed that any changes in the current regulations would be met by possible resistance. The panel plans community outreach sessions to discuss any proposals before they go to Town Meeting in May.
 
Jeschawitz suggested that if McCallum could do some more conceptual renderings of what might be possible under less restrictive regulations, it would help spur the discussion.
 
"What would be neat to do is to take a plan of the downtown and stick [the hypothetical development] in and ask, 'Do you like this? Are you scared of it?' " Jeschawitz said. "We'd like to get some feedback on whether it's acceptable."
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