WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — School regionalization was not the only issue to sail through Tuesday's special town meeting without debate.

 

The town approved eight other warrant articles with minimal discussion, advancing a plan to replace the town's police station and authorizing changes to the town's zoning bylaws.

 

Voters OK'd the $300,000 acquisition of .42 acres on Simonds Road (U.S. Route 7), including the building that used to be the Turner House for veterans.

 

When the non-profit Turner House announced its plan to suspend operations, the town in October 2016 eyed it as a potential site to replace the crowded and inadequate home for the Williamstown Police Department at Town Hall.

 

Those plans were announced in the spring of this year, after the town engaged an architect to assess whether the Simonds Road site could meet the needs of the department.

 

According to information provided to the voters prior to Tuesday's meeting, the town still has about $265,000 available for architectural and design services from the $321,000 previously authorized at town meetings in 2004, 2012 and 2013. And the estimated cost of renovation and expansion to Turner House is in the neighborhood of $5 million.

 

Town Manager Jason Hoch reported to the town Tuesday that he hopes to have a full building program, including costs, ready for approval in time for May's Annual Town Meeting, with the hope of moving the the police station by fall 2019.

 

The town also accepted the donation of 9 acres on Main Street (Route 2), hoping part of it one day will serve as the link between a bike trail planned in town and a similar trail in the city of North Adams. The Williamstown portion recently was reviewed at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's 25 percent design hearing but is waiting for signoff from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has jurisdiction over the former Spruces Mobile Home Park property.

 

Article 4 on the agenda was a utility easement for Berkshire Gas, which want to move a regulator station from a subterranean location across the street to a new above ground Church Street location on the northeast corner of the Williamstown Elementary School property.

 

Planning Board Chairman Chris Kapiloff explained the five zoning changes recommended by his committee. The changes were generally designed to create consistency in the bylaw. One made parking changes for existing residential development similar to the existing requirement for commercial development; another placed the same requirement for hotels on property in the Southern Gateway district that already exists in the town's center.

 

One of the amendments closes a "doughnut hole" created by the Cable Mills Overlay District. The special district that allowed multi-family housing at Water Street's Cable Mills site created an island of properties on the street, surrounded by the overlay district, that do not enjoy the same rights enjoyed by their neighbor. Tuesday's town meeting action grants the same rights to those properties.

 

In a move that is in line with the Planning Board's stated goal of increasing housing options, the board sought and received the town's blessing for changes in Williamstown's Planned Business and Limited Business districts. Specifically, it now will be easier for a developer to seek approval for multi-family homes in those districts.

 

"Currently, it's really hard to build housing in Planned Business or Limited Business," Kapiloff explained. "We'd like to make it easier if someone wanted to build a housing development in someplace zoned for business.

 

"One thing we've been studying is what young people want for housing, and most young people want to live in the center of town. This will make it easier for them to have housing where they want to live."