Letters: Housing Committee Working to Expand Opportunities

To the Editor:

Williamstown is becoming increasingly older and wealthier. Young families and singles have limited options for rental and owner-occupied housing that is affordable. Though home prices here have declined somewhat over the last several years, home ownership is still out of reach for many.

The Affordable Housing Committee seeks to increase the availability of housing that is affordable for those who
live or work in Williamstown. A range of housing options will contribute to the economic and age diversity that is essential for the town’s future.

Williamstown has many amenities: natural beauty, cultural institutions, good schools, and well-run town government. Towns with these advantages tend to have higher housing costs than towns that lack them. There is, however, another factor at work: land use. We must face the fact that the decisions we make about land use impact housing costs.

The Town of Williamstown is approximately 47 square miles: 30,000 acres. Currently, 89 percent of our land is forest, wetlands, cropland, pasture or in conservation. That leaves 11 percent available for residential, commercial and municipal use. It is undeniable that the limited amount of land available for residential use drives up housing costs.

These six people constitute the full membership of the Williamstown Affordable Housing Committee.

Bilal Ansari
Charles Bonenti
Van Ellet
Cheryl Shanks
Leigh Short
Catherine Yamamoto
Williamstown
March 4, 1993

BHS' New North County Urgent Care Center Opens Tuesday

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
05:44PM / Monday, December 15, 2025

There is a waiting area and reception desk to the right of the Williamstown Medical entrance. 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Staff and contractors were completing the final touches on Monday to prepare for the opening of Berkshire Health System's new urgent care center. 

 

Robert Shearer, administrative director of urgent care, said the work would be done in time for Berkshire Health Urgent Care North to open Tuesday at 11 a.m. in a wing of Williamstown Medical on Adams Road.  

 

The urgent care center will occupy a suite of rooms off the right side of the entry, with two treatment rooms, offices, amenities, and X-ray room. 

 

"This is a test of the need in the community, the want in the community, to see just how much we need," said Shearer. "One thing that I think Berkshire Health Systems has always been really good at is kind of gauging the need and growing based on what the community tells us. 

 

"And so if we on day one and two and three, find that we're filling this up and maybe exceeding the capacity of the two exam rooms and one provider, then we look to expand it."

 

Hours will be weekdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and weekends from 8 to noon, but the expectation is that the center will "expand those hours pretty quick."

 

BHS has two urgent care centers in Lenox and in Pittsfield. The health system had tried a walk-in center at Williamstown nearly a decade ago but shuttered over low volume of patients.