WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday heard from six applicants seeking CPA funds from May's annual town meeting, including one grant seeker that was not included in the applications posted on the town's website prior to the meeting.

 

That website included nine applications as of Tuesday evening, with requests totaling just more than $1 million — well over the $624,000 in available Community Preservation Act funds that the committee anticipates being available for fiscal year 2027.

 

A 10th request came from the town's Agricultural Commission, whose proponents made their cases in person to the CPC on Tuesday. The other four are scheduled to give presentations to the committee at its Jan. 27 meeting.

 

Between now and March, the committee will need to decide what, if any, grant requests it will recommend to May's town meeting, where members will have the final say on allocations.

 

Ag Commissioners Sarah Gardner and Brian Cole appeared before the committee to talk about the body's request for $25,000 to create a farmland protection fund.

 

"It would be a fund the commission could use to participate in the exercise of a right of first refusal when Chapter [61] land comes out of chapter status," Gardner explained, alluding to a process that came up most recently when the Select Board assigned the town's right of first refusal to the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation, which ultimately acquired a parcel on Oblong Road that otherwise would have been sold off for residential development.

 

"The town has a right of first refusal, but that has to be acted on in 120 days. It's not something we can fund raise for. We have to have money in the bank. And we'd have to partner with a land trust or some other interested party like Rural Lands or the Berkshire Natural Resources Council. Agricultural commissions in the state are empowered to create these funds."

 

Cole told the CPC that the governor has made it a priority to protect agricultural land, which is disappearing in Massachusetts along with the rest of the country.

 

"This [fund] allows us to act quickly when a project comes up, because agricultural land is prized for other uses, particularly as a building lot," Cole said. "This allows us to be a player in the conservation game."

 

Committee member Peter Beck asked whether the $25,000 sought could make a meaningful impact.

 

"You're right," Cole said. "It's not going to buy a piece of land outright. For the parcel you're talking about [on Oblong Road], there are a number of funding sources that came together to make that happen — state funds, grant funds, land trusts will do a lot of fundraising."

 

And some of those grant opportunities can be unlocked with a local match that the Ag Commission could offer when opportunities arise, Cole said.

 

"We may be coming back for more [funds] in the future," he said. "This money will give us some flexibility."

 

The Ag Commission was one of four municipal entities on the agenda for the CPC's first meeting of the calendar year.

 

The chair of the town's Affordable Housing Trust board, the superintendent of the Mount Greylock Regional School District and the director of the town's Department of Public Works both spoke in support of applications their bodies have before the committee for FY27.

 

In Mount Greylock's case, the district hopes to ask town meeting to "regrant" the $100,000 in CPA funds that voters approved in 2023 toward a $4.4 million field and track project at the middle high school. The district did not use that $100,000 before the two-year "sunset" provision kicked in and hopes to use it now to complete some pedestrian foot paths around the sports complex and acquire bleachers to place on a pad that was included in the original project.

 

"This $100,000 is something we applied for earlier and received but, due to the timing of the project and focusing on having a playable field with the track amenities that we need, we did not expend those funds in time," Superintendent Joseph Bergeron told the committee.

 

"We have spent $4.3 million [mostly the proceeds of a capital gift from Williams College]. The next $100,000 would be for these finishing touches. … It was originally part of the project. As we value-engineered things, we needed to get core components done first."

 

Beck asked why a two-town regional school district was coming to one of its member towns — and not the other, Lanesborough — to pay for the bleachers.

 

"One reason we came to the CPC [in 2023] is that this location and a lot of the traffic that comes to it is in Williamstown," Bergeron said. "It felt like a natural thing for us to do."

 

Williamstown DPW Director Craig Clough was before the committee asking it to put a $250,000 CPA request on this year's annual town meeting warrant and commit to putting a second $250,000 request before town meeting in May 2027 to support the renovation of Broad Brook Park.

 

The 1.8-acre parcel on the north end of town is an underutilized asset with outdated and failing playground equipment and a basketball court and ballfield that both are in disrepair.

 

Clough said that with a $500,000 commitment from the town in the form of CPA funding, the town hopes to access a matching federal Land and Water Grant administered by the state.

 

He said that while there are other playgrounds and outdoor recreation opportunities in town — the playgrounds at Linear Park off Water Street and Williamstown Elementary School, and courts on the Williams College campus — the town needs its own facilities.

 

"We can't solely rely on the college, the elementary school and the high school to provide recreation for the public at large," Clough said.

 

Noting that part of the renovation under consideration includes a pickleball court, CPC member Nate Buddington asked Clough whether the town is talking to residents near Broad Brook Park about potential noise impacts from the popular racquet sport.

 

"I have talked to the people in the closest house next to the park," Clough said. "They're all for it. They wish they saw more people utilizing the park."

 

Clough also noted that designs for the renovation project are not finalized, and the town has a survey up on its website through Jan. 31.

 

Affordable Housing Trust Chair Daniel Gura spoke in support of the trust's request for $170,000 to support its work around community housing in town.

 

Gura noted that the town's past CPA funding for the trust has supported 27 grants under the AHT's Richard DeMayo Mortgage Assistance Program and helped 43 households remain in their homes under the trust's Williamstown Emergency Rental Assistance Program. The trust also has supported other income-restricted housing initiatives in town, including two homes built by Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity at the corner of Cole Avenue and Maple Street and a four-home subdivision Habitat is building off Summer Street.

 

Two of the applicants before the CPC were local non-profits: Sand Springs Recreation Center and Images Cinema.

 

Sand Springs' Henry Smith told the committee the center is seeking $59,500 to support new infrastructure and improvements to the pool deck and the sanitization equipment in the pool's pump room.

 

The additions would be the creation of a sauna and a 10-set hot tub that would help the center continue to be a 12-month facility, Smith said.

 

"We are looking to increase recreational offerings in the town and be able to grow in our ability to provide that," he said. 

 

"We operate on pretty razor thin margins. [If the CPA funds were not available], what would end up happening is one of these projects would fall by the wayside for the moment. We're caught because we can't bring in more revenue because the infrastructure can't support it."

 

Smith told the committee that Sand Springs is committed to continue providing access for all residents.

 

"We will not turn people away for financial reasons," he said. "$22,500 was given away in 2025 to families who could not afford [passes]."

 

Images Cinema is seeking $20,323 in CPA funds to support the movie house's renovation project, specifically its revamped lobby.

 

Images Executive Director Dan Hudson and board member Matt Brogan told the committee that the money is sought for the historic preservation of the lobby's tiled floor and tin ceilings and the addition of a mini-split HVAC system.

 

"Our understanding is that HVAC does qualify because it's moisture control, temperature control and would allow us to preserve the historic lobby as it exists," Hudson said.

 

In answer to a question from the committee, Hudson said that the renovation project, which includes the addition of a second screen at the 110-year-old Spring Street venue, is on track to be completed in early spring.

 

"We don't have a hard grand reopening date announced as of yet," Hudson said. "But we contracted for a six-month construction timeline that commenced the beginning of October."