Updated Monday morning to clarify a point about the town’s existing accessory dwelling unit bylaw. 

 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — After June's annual town meeting referred back most of an ambitious slate of proposals from the Planning Board, the panel is preparing a simpler, more focused set of proposed bylaw amendments that it hopes will be more readily understood by members of town meeting 2023.

 

Last week, the board heard a sample of just how objectionable some residents can find even the simplest of ideas.

 

"I may be the only person in this room feeling this way, but it seems like madness has taken hold of the Planning Board," Rhon Ernest-Jones told the board.

 

Ernest-Jones was speaking in response to a draft warrant article that would essentially replace the term "mobile home" in the zoning bylaw with the more contemporary term "manufactured home" and allow said structures in all residential areas subject to the same rules as any other home.

 

Advocates argue that such a change would acknowledge advancements in the manufactured home industry that looks very different from the "mobile homes" that were common when the bylaw was enacted in the 1950s. And, more importantly, permitting manufactured homes would open up the town to a housing option that is significantly less expensive than conventional stick-built homes.

 

The bylaw on the table specifically would allow homes "built in conformance with the National Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards," a U.S. Housing and Urban Development regime that was enacted in 1974 to enforce "appropriate standards for the construction, design, performance, and installation of manufactured homes to assure their quality, durability, affordability, and safety. 

 

Ernest-Jones, who has a background in construction, accused the Planning Board of trying to trick the town by changing the terminology from "mobile" to "manufactured."

 

"I think we're sugar-coating with terminology changing, total sugar-coating," Ernest-Jones said. "I have no idea why you're changing a name like that other than bamboozling people into thinking it's not a mobile home. An 8-by-40 foot, manufactured on a chassis home is a mobile home.

 

"I think it's inexcusable, in a way, to propose to sugar coat it by a name change."

 

Earlier this fall, the Planning Board sat down with a representative from the manufactured home industry who detailed the quality standards required for a HUD-certified home, the economies of scale created by the manufactured home industry and the ways in which modern manufactured homes are indistinguishable from stick-built residences.

 

Ernest-Jones said if the town wanted to allow what he continued to refer to as "mobile homes," they should only be permitted in "parks that are well-conceived, well-managed and the rules strictly enforced."

 

Citing his experience in municipal government in other places, Ernest-Jones said, "our first-responders spent 90 percent of their time in these mobile home parks."

 

Randy Fippinger, who was at Tuesday's meeting to speak on a different topic, went to the microphone right after Ernest-Jones.

 

"I have seen many communities successfully have manufactured housing as an [accessory dwelling unit]," Fippinger said. "My mom lived in one, and I spent a good deal of my childhood living in one. It was an ADU, and it did not destroy our community."

 

The four current Planning Board members did not appear to be swayed by Ernest-Jones' argument. But one member made his own case for greater regulation of manufactured homes and also suggested the board concentrate on expanding the opportunity to create mobile home parks beyond the town's single such park, Pine Lodge Park off Henderson Road.

 

Roger Lawrence opened Tuesday's discussion with a presentation of his research into the manufactured home question, largely focusing on the advantages of strong rules that make existing parks in the region more favorable for tenants. Lawrence also asked his colleagues whether a bylaw change that allows more manufactured homes should include "form-based" codes that regulate the look of such structures.

 

Peter Beck immediately responded that he did not favor any form-based rules that would be targeted at a specific type of housing, and the town does currently have requirements for design elements like roof pitch or landscaping around homes.

 

Beck did agree with Lawrence that the town should look at opening up the possibility for additional manufactured home parks, but he said allowing manufactured homes on single lots throughout town is a good first step.

 

Lawrence noted that parks are often more affordable than single-lot manufactured homes because the latter requires additional expense for land acquisition whereas parks often have allow home owners to rent the land beneath the home.

 

"Do we achieve affordability by allowing anyone to tear down any existing building lot, tear down an existing building, and put up three manufactured homes on it?" Lawrence asked, referring to how a new manufactured home bylaw would interact with the town's existing ADU bylaw. "Yes, it probably will be cheaper to get three units on a piece of property, but will that be good for the neighborhood, and will that be more affordable for anyone who lives in those buildings?"

 

Planning Board Chair Stephanie Boyd clarified Monday morning that while the ADU bylaw does allow a two-unit home and a detached ADU on a single lot, it also requires a five-year waiting period between applications for the first and second accessory unit and caps the total number of buildings at two. 

 

Beck at last week’s meeting countered Lawrence's point about land costs.

 

"Last year, we said, 'Maybe we'd have cheaper homes if lots were smaller,' and people said, 'Yeah, but construction costs are so high,'" Beck said. "Now, we're saying, we have a cheaper form of construction. We can't then say, ‘Yeah, but land costs are so high.' We've got to chip away at these costs one way or the other."

 

Enacting the bylaw amendment as drafted could have another benefit to the town: bringing the bylaw into compliance with existing state law.

 

Attorney Elisabeth Goodman, like Fippinger at the meeting to talk about town meeting procedures in her capacity as town moderator, pointed the Planning Board to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 40A, Section 3, which reads, in part, "No zoning ordinance or bylaw shall regulate or restrict the use of materials, or methods of construction of structures regulated by the state building code."

 

"Is manufactured housing regulated by the building code, and, if so, how can the Planning Board regulate that?" Goodman asked.

 

Town Planner Andrew Groff said that although Williamstown is not alone in the commonwealth in prohibiting that type of housing outside mobile home parks, he agreed that Chapter 40A puts those prohibitions on questionable legal ground.

 

Groff said the commonwealth's building code, "says you can build it if it has a HUD sticker on it."

 

"Honestly, I think this is a topic ripe for a legal challenge in Massachusetts if someone wanted to do so," Groff said.

 

In other business on Tuesday night, the Planning Board discussed the two other potential bylaw amendments it is crafting for May's annual town meeting: one that would open up multi-unit housing for up to three units per residence and another that would reduce the lot frontage requirement in the General Residence district – one of the proposals that was referred back to the Planning Board by this year's annual town meeting.

 

The board also held a discussion with Fippinger and Goodman about possible changes to the operation of town meeting to make it more accessible to residents and more efficient.