Sweetwood Owner Back Before Williamstown Planning Board
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A representative from the Sweetwood Independent Living Community last week opened a dialogue with the Planning Board about creating a potential zoning bylaw amendment to help the facility stay economically viable.
But attorney Karla Chaffee offered no new language to replace the amendments the landowner proposed and later withdrew for last May's annual town meeting.
"If the message from the board is, 'You bring a proposal to us,' that's fine as well," Chaffee said in a video conference with the four members at the board's July 11 meeting. "I was heartened by comments we heard at the last Planning Board meeting that there was very much a willingness to work with us and work with [Sweetwood owner] CareOne.
"The owner of the property is trying to do the right thing. They're trying to maintain services for their current residents."
CareOne said it cannot continue to provide those services on a property zoned for assisted living with Sweetwood's current 50 percent occupancy rate. The company wants to be able to rent unoccupied units as regular apartments, an "other multifamily" use not allowed in the Rural Residence 2 and 3 zoning districts where Sweetwood is located.
Last spring, concern about unintended consequences from a pair of zoning bylaw amendments CareOne submitted for May's meeting and objections raised by current Sweetwood residents prompted the Planning Board to vote against recommending town meeting pass those amendments. CareOne then withdrew them before the town meeting.
At the July 11 session, Chaffee explained CareOne's motivations to newly elected board members Cory Campbell and Ben Greenfield.
She also said CareOne would like to see the issue addressed in a special town meeting during this calendar year rather than wait until the May 2024 annual town meeting.
She suggested that the landowner would be willing to agree to deed restrictions to address some of the unintended consequences that were feared from the spring 2023 proposals, which would have made the Sweetwood land a non-contiguous extension of the town's current Southern Gateway District.
"One of the things would be if we entered into an agreement with you where we put a restriction on the property in perpetuity that it can't be converted to a hotel," Chaffee said, referring to a use that is prohibited in RR2 and RR3 but allowed by special permit in the Southern Gateway. "Any new construction at the property could be subject to not only an inclusionary bylaw but maybe something else.
"That's the type of discussion that would be helpful. How do we get the use changed in a way that isn't going to have adverse consequences for you?"
Chaffee said CareOne is continuing to communicate with Sweetwood's current residents to reassure them that the company has no plans to get out of the independent living business or to end the services those residents currently receive at the facility.
And she reiterated the company's position that the current zoning restrictions at the property make it unlikely CareOne will be able to operate a facility at the site indefinitely.
"The reason we're coming before you with a zoning proposal, a yet to be determined zoning proposal, is the property really needs new sources of income," the Boston attorney said. "We have done many marketing efforts. We have at least for 10 years been trying to increase occupancy at the property. Frankly, we have not been able to fill the spaces we'd like to fill to make it an economically viable model."
The four members of the board at Tuesday's meeting — Campbell, Greenfield, Roger Lawrence and Ken Kuttner — indicated a willingness to continue cooperation with Chaffee and her client on developing a zoning bylaw proposal that the board could endorse to town meeting.
In other business, Lawrence and Kuttner gave their colleagues presentations on potential high density housing models that have been successful elsewhere but would not permissible in Williamstown without changes to the current zoning bylaws.
Kuttner, repeated a lesson he gave the Planning Board last winter about the "cottage court" model, citing ordinances he found that would allow as many as 15 single-family housing units on an acre of land.
Lawrence went into greater detail on an open space residential development he has studied in Northampton.
He said the open space residential development model has important differences from the cottage court model and that the former might be a good option for the rural parts of town. The Northampton development he studied, Burts Meadow, is a 100-acre parcel with the overwhelming majority kept in conservation and just three acres developed nine single family homes and three duplexes.
"Open space residential developments may have a density of four to six units per acre," Lawrence said. "Also, with open space residential development, those smaller communities have an emphasis on private space that each unit has, but there may be some shared space as well. With cottage courts, there is very much an emphasis on common areas with almost no private space.
"The consequence is open space residential development creates what I'd call neighborhoods. Cottage courts create what I'd call a discrete community with a well defined perimeter."
Both Kuttner and Lawrence are working offline to see if they can craft zoning bylaw amendments that the whole board can consider to bring to town meeting to enable those housing types.
One housing type that the board proposed allowing last May that town meeting narrowly rejected continues to spark discussion.
The Planning Board members have discussed bringing a future town meeting a revised proposal to allow manufactured housing on single-family lots where "stick-built" homes currently are allowed in town. Greenfield, specifically, is researching ways to incorporate language that holds manufactured homes to the same design standards currently applied to stick-built or modular construction in town in order to avoid what he has characterized as a potential "two-tier housing system" in the bylaw.
Manufactured housing was not on the agenda for the board to discuss at the July 11 session, but the issue nevertheless drew two residents to address the board during its public comment agenda item.
Abigail Reifsnyder told the board that allowing manufactured homes can be a potential game-changer for people who want to live in Williamstown but cannot afford homes currently on the market.
"I've seen families who for decades wanted to purchase their own home and finally can purchase a manufactured home and not have to be subject to the whims of a landlord," Reifsnyder said. "It's theirs. … I would hate to see us deny that to people. I've just seen it be life changing."
Real estate agent Paul Harsch, who dominated the discussion at the board's June meeting, returned a month later to continue voicing his objection to manufactured homes and, more generally, the idea that Williamstown needs to do anything in its zoning bylaws to allow more affordable housing options.
"You need to quantify what is the level of need that seems to be driving this whole debate," Harsch said. "It drove the effort to create more in-town buildable parcels. Where is this tremendous demand for affordable housing? I'm a Realtor. I get calls all the time. I'm not getting any calls from people saying, 'Find me a home. I can't afford what's out there.'
"There's a great deal of talk about the dire need for affordable housing, talk about poor people who can't afford to live in Williamstown. I'm not seeing that."
Harsch also reiterated his argument that the Planning Board's May 2023 proposal on manufactured homes flies in the face of previous town officials' efforts to "protect the community."
Specifically, he said he thinks that former Select Board and Planning Board member Richard DeMayo would "turn over in his grave" if he knew that manufactured homes were being allowed in Williamstown.
That comment caught the ear of DeMayo's daughter, Carin Demayo-Wall.
"Unfortunately, we don't have him here to help us fully obtain his opinion but I would like to offer a different perspective on Dick DeMayo's views," Demayo-Wall wrote in reply to an email asking for comment. "He was a man that was committed to balance and a place where all walks of life are welcome. His door was always open. He felt strongly that affordable housing was a necessity in the town he loved so much.
"As Dick DeMayo's daughter, I believe what my father wanted was safe, reliable and affordable housing — he did not exclude pre-fab as long as it meets safety standards."
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