Letters: Things for Lowry Opponents to Think About

To the Editor:

For all of the people who are opposed to the Lowry and Burbank properties being used for housing, here are a few things to think about.

You state that we need to keep open spaces free from development and be able to have farmland and I understand that but. I also realize there is a dire need for housing that can not be overlooked.

Many of the homes near the land we are talking about once sat on farmland. If you live on the west side of Stratton Road south of the Lowry property, or on the new section of Longview Terrace, or any  development on the east side of Stratton Road, south of Cobbleview Road, think of where your home was built, and built within recent history. A good chance it was farmland? Absolutely. Are you in any of the new homes built in the last few years on or just off Oblong Road? Was that farmland? Absolutely.

You all enjoy living there with all that the land offers you and your family. How would you feel if there had been a motion to disallow the building of your home? Also why now (after so many years of most people not even checking to see where it stood in regards to conservation) is it so important to pass a vote to put Lowry and Burbank into conservation?

Charleen Blood
Williamstown
March 20, 2013

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.