WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board last week talked about balancing housing and land conservation in the rural parts of town and protecting the aquifer that supplies drinking water to most of the town's inhabitants.

 

The bulk of the meeting was dedicated to discussing projects that the board wants to work on in the year ahead, including initiatives in a couple of areas — short-term rentals and housing lot sizes — that have been on the board's radar for years and one new initiative that was brought to the board by a member of town's staff.

 

The meeting began with the approval of a subdivision on Water Street.

 

The owner of the former Grange Hall site sought and received the board's approval to subdivide the property into four lots, in accordance with the bylaw. Three new housing lots of about 1 1/4 acre each with 70 feet of frontage will be carved out of the lot, where the owner last year gave up on a proposal that would have created 16 units of mixed-income housing after neighbors threatened an appeal of the Chapter 40B development.

 

Planners Kenneth Kuttner and Roger Lawrence later gave their colleagues on the board a presentation about how the town could implement an open space residential development bylaw that would couple conserved land with smaller lot sizes for homes.

 

Currently in RR2, the town's largest rural residential district, homes are permitted on a minimum lot size of 2 1/2 acres.

 

Kuttner and Lawrence have been studying whether Williamstown could follow the path of other towns in the commonwealth and allow smaller home lots on a single parcel if the majority of that parcel is left undeveloped.