Letter: Support for Williamstown Planning Board Recommendations

Letter to the Editor06:15PM / Sunday, May 08, 2022Print Story | Email Story

To the Editor:

I support the Williamstown Planning Board's bylaw recommendations. They represent a good first step towards reducing the artificial barriers in our decades-old zoning map.

While some have criticized the board for moving too fast, I found the process deliberate and thorough. The board engaged the community in an open discussion. There was a spirited debate, with many opportunities for community input. The original proposal was changed in response to suggestions received along the way, which reflected the board's willingness to listen and respond to the community.

The final product (1) removes barriers for apartments above businesses and small scale multi-unit homes, (2) permits more density in the center of town where there is existing infrastructure, (3) reduces lot sizes to promote more diverse housing options (4) allows for the conversation of former hotels for assisted living facilities, and (5) removes directive language that requires the zoning board look unfavorably on any extension of the town's utilities, even it helped increase housing opportunities. These are common sense approaches to the housing challenges we face in town.

Some have expressed their desire for yet more study. We can, of course, delay addressing our housing challenges and wait for more academic studies, but I agree with the board that we should act this year. We talk about our collective conviction to create a more inclusive and welcoming community — it's time to act on those convictions.

I've also heard some say the proposal will create more housing, but there's no guarantee that it will be more affordable. Why would we reject a proposal because it may not help and, instead, cling tightly to our exclusive zoning map which we know, from over 50 years of data, keeps prices artificially high and less wealthy families out.

Approval of this proposal would send a clear signal that we are serious about taking down the economic barriers in our zoning by-laws. The challenge of dismantling these barriers and creating more housing options will not be resolved with just one change. It will take many changes over several years and the board's proposal is a good first step.

Fred Puddester
Williamstown, Mass.

Tags: housing, zoning,

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Discrimination Against Muslim Americans Persists 25 Years After 9/11

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
07:00AM / Saturday, September 12, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Dozens of Muslim Americans were among people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Untold numbers of Muslim Americans have suffered countless acts of discrimination in their aftermath.

"Of course, you'll find several accounts of Muslims from all over the U.S. describing how they went from the unknown kids in the school to being stereotyped or ridiculed for their Muslim names," Sidra Mahmood recalled recently. "However, many Americans forget that the victims of 9/11 were also Muslim Americans.

"I can't forget the time when a classmate broke down in sobs when 9/11 came up in our classroom at the Islamic seminary I went to in Texas, because her father's best friend who was like an uncle to her, died on 9/11."

Today, Mahmood is a chaplain at Williams College. In 2001, she was growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists forced two passenger jets into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and another plane into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. A third plane, which terrorists hoped to crash into a D.C. landmark, was brought down in western Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.

The attacks, which ultimately claimed 2,976 lives, horrified people around the world, including in Mahmood's native land.

"I remember being aghast like anyone who witnessed the fall of the Twin Towers in real time," she said. "However, even as a child, fear gripped me about the possibility of war, especially once we learned that Afghanistan, right adjacent to Pakistan, would be attacked by the U.S. My mother had told me about the 1971 war between India and Pakistan when she remembered hiding in the dark after bomb sirens would go off in Punjab after intentional blackouts.

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