WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Ten projects totaling more than $293,000 will be on the agenda when the Community Preservation Committee holds its first 2016 meeting on Wednesday evening at Town Hall.

 

Last month, Chairwoman Jane Patton reported that the town anticipates having about $284,000 in Community Preservation Act funds to disperse in fiscal 2017. The committee is charged with annually vetting requests and recommending some or all for approval by May's annual town meeting.

 

The money in that $284,000 pot is generated by a combination of state support and revenue from a property tax surcharge adopted by the town in May 2002. Williamstown property owners pay 2 percent on top of their property tax bill — after an exemption for the first $100,000 of valuation — to support the CPA account.

 

The CPA funds can be used for projects that promote historic preservation, community housing or open space and recreation.

 

The largest single applicant before the CPC this year is the town's Affordable Housing Trust, which seeks another $75,000 to support its mortgage assistance program. In its application, the trust notes that in 2015, the program's first year, it "assisted six families to secure mortgages and buy houses in Town."

 

The Trust has been funded by CPA funds since its creation at the 2012 annual town meeting. In addition to the mortgage program, it has financially supported the Highland Woods senior housing project and acquired two building lots with hopes to partner with a non-profit to build new, deed-restricted, owner-occupied housing.

 

The second largest request before the committee on Tuesday comes from another town committee, the Spruces Land Use Committee, which is seeking "up to $65,000" to fund a study of the 114-acre soon-to-be-closed Spruces Mobile Home Park. The town is scheduled to acquire the property this year under the terms of a federal Hazard Mitigation Grant negotiated by the town and park owner Morgan Management.

 

The town currently is in the process of dismantling the remaining structures at the park, and the last few residents will move out this winter.

 

The Spruces committee was created and charged with investigating what the town should and can do with the Main Street property. The $65,000 grant request is to pay for wetlands delineation and a survey and cost estimates of what the park could be.

 

At its December meeting, the committee discussed whether it should seek outside funding to pay for part of the study but decided to seek the full amount it needs from the Community Preservation Committee.

 

"I understand the preference for other organizations sharing cost, but we are a town committee working on a town-oriented project," Spruces committee member David Rempell said. "I can't think of anything that meets the guidelines of the Community Preservation Act more than this work.

 

"The town, in effect, said to us, 'Come up with a plan.' I feel very comfortable with this part of the plan being funded by the CPA."

 

Of the 10 projects before the committee on Wednesday, five identify CPA funds as the sole potential funding source. Three of those are town bodies: the Affordable Housing Trust, Spruces Land Use Committee and the Conservation Commission, which is looking for $29,500 to fund construction of a bridge on the Hunter property.

 

The Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation is seeking $7,500 to create a unified trail system at Stone Hill.

 

The fifth applicant not to identify outside funding is the owner of the historic Nehemiah Smedley House on Main Street, however, Bruce MacDonald is seeking just $32,535 toward a much larger renovation that already has been completed at the site.

 

"The restoration is complete," MacDonald's application reads. "Although the restoration of the Smedley house is complete we are applying for funding of a portion of this project, the sill repair. The most basic, if the least glamorous, this necessary reconstruction was vital."

 

The preservation committee has scheduled 15 minutes for each of the 10 applicants to make their cases to the committee at Wednesday's meeting, which is expected to last from 7 p.m. to just past 9:30.

 

In order of appearance before the committee, the applicants include:

 

1. Spruces Land Use Committee (up to $65,000, 100 percent of project cost). The committee sought and received two ballpark estimates from consultants to see how much its study would cost. It decided at its Dec. 15 meeting to ask for funding up to the amount of hte higher estimate "to avoid underfunding the project."

 

2. Hoosic River Watershed Association ($9,140, 64 percent of project cost). HooWRA wants to use the money to plant native species along a 500-foot drainage swale constructed on the Spruces property by the Massachusetts Deparment of Transportation. The plantings will encourage wildlife habitat, beautify the area and lower the ambient temperature of the water running through the swale, which will encourage aquatic life. The Spruces committee and the board of the non-profit HooWRA each voted to support the other's application.

 

3. First Congregational Church ($50,000, 33 percent of project cost). The church, which recently celebrated is 250th anniversary, seeks the funds to allow upgrades and renovation to the historic Main Street meetinghouse, which dates back to 1869, was renovated in 1914 and underwent an addition in the 1960s. About $70,000 of the project is centered in the meetinghouse kitchen.

 

"The goal is to bring the kitchen to a standard that it can be used by groups wishing to hold fundraising dinners," the church's application notes. "This would make the Meetinghouse kitchen the only such space in Williamstown available to community members not affiliated with Williams College."

 

4. Conservation Commission ($29,500, 100 percent of project cost). The commission wants to build a bridge to replace one washed out by flooding in 2012 to allow hiking access to the 176-acre town-owned Hunter property. "The primary public access to the property was from Petersburg Road crossing Buxton Brook on an Eagle Scout project bridge built in 1996," the Con Comm's application reads. "The bridge was showing signs of failure in 2002 and was washed out in 2012. The goal of this project is to build a new bridge over Buxton Brook."

 

5. Williamstown Historical Museum ($14,845, 37 percent of project cost). The museum wants to preserve, conserve and exhibit the 1875 Southworth Golden Wedding Anniversary Album, a historically significant document that was "compiled in 1875 to honor Emily and Sumner Southworth's 50th anniversary."

 

6. Gale Hose Company ($6,436, 51 percent of project cost). The benevolent organization of current and former firefighters is seeking funds to "conserve the JB Gale No. 2 Hose Cart, one of the original two pieces of firefighting equipment apparatus purchased for the Gale Hose Company, the precursur of the Williamsown Fire District, by John B. Gale in 1895."

 

7. Smedley House ($32,535, 100 percent of project cost). As previously noted, the owner of the historic Main Street home already has completed substantial renovation to the property and is seeking CPA funds to finance part of it. "If our application for sill repair/replacement funding is successful we will place a requirement in the deed that the Tavern will be open to the public one day a year," the application reads.

 

8. South Williamstown Community Association ($3,500, 50 percent of project cost). The SWCA wants to create a dog park on the 1-acre parcel behind the South Center School (Little Red School House) near the junction of Routes 7 and 43. The town already has signed a lease to allow the Williamstown Historical Museum to relocate from the Milne Public Library to the former school in South Williamstown. The SWCA hopes to use the land to build a community "where dogs with their owners have [an] opportunity to meet each other, run, play and socialize in a safe environment," the application reads. Most of the project's budget ($4,996 of $7,000) is for fencing.

 

9. Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation ($7,500, 100 percent of project cost). WRLF wants to create a unified trail system at Stone Hill, linking trails on properties owned by the town, the Clark Art Institute, the Buxton School, Williams College and Pine Cobble School.

 

10. Affordable Housing Trust ($75,000, 100 percent of project cost). The trust, which seeks the funds to support its mortgage assistance program, is the only applicant whose request addresses community housing, one of three stated aims of the Community Preservation Act. "If the CPC and Town Meeting award the requested grant in 2016, the second year of the MAP should be able to match the success of the initial year."