TM OKS money for fire dept. efforts, master plan
By Mary Carey
Staff Writer
Published on November 11, 2005
Town Meeting had a busy two weeks, opting to spend $20,000 to identify a location for a possible third fire station; $33,650 to help pay the town's share of a federal grant to add five firefighters to the town force and $65,000 to continue developing a master plan. It did not choose to permanently designate as conservation land 66 acres in southeast Amherst known as Wentworth Farm.
Members expected to wrap up deliberations on over two dozen articles in four nights before convening again on Wednesday, Nov. 16 for a ''special within a special'' Town Meeting to decide several historical preservation articles.
It took under a half hour for Town Meeting to agree that it is time the town do the research necessary before deciding whether a third fire station is needed. The Fire Station Study Committee maintains that a third station in South Amherst would help close the gap between the Amherst Fire Department's average fire and ambulance response time and what is deemed acceptable by national standards.
The committee estimates that a new station would cost roughly $7.2 million and would require an additional eight firefighters to staff at approximately $500,000 a year. But it would likely be 10 years before a new station would be finished and renovations at the Central Fire Station completed, and the eight new firefighters wouldn't all be needed until then.
Few people argued that the town shouldn't proceed with the search for a site.
''It's pretty obvious,'' Select Board member Gerald Weiss said, arguing in favor of the $20,000 appropriation to locate a site and determine what kind of a station it could support. Three previous studies, in 1965, 1966 and 1983, all came to the conclusion that a third station was needed but it has been 30 years since the last station, in North Amherst, was built. ''The town is going to have to decide at some point if we're going to go ahead and build another station,'' Weiss said.
Master plan
Town Meeting approved spending $65,000 for Amherst to continue developing a ''master plan'' in about twice the time it took the body to conclude the town should pursue the idea of building a fire station.
Massachusetts requires communities to have a master plan and apportions some state monies to cities and towns based on whether they already created a master plan or are in the process of developing one. The first of three expected installments totaling $200,000 over three years, the $65,000 is slated to pay for consultant services and other expenses associated with putting a plan in place by 2009.
Amherst's Comprehensive Planning Committee, which has been holding hearings attended by 100 or more residents at a time, has identified, among other resident priorities, a desire to rein in taxes, create more affordable housing, preserve open space and expand public transportation.
Fourteen of 20 members of the Comprehensive Planning Committee had assembled on the stage of the Amherst Regional Middle School Auditorium, where Town Meeting is held in support of the $65,000 request.
Article 11, requesting the $65,000 to marshal the priorities into a plan did not prove to be a completely easy sell, however. Some Town Meeting members suggested further work on the plan could be done for $20,000. Others suggested the Comprehensive Planning Committee come back with a request for money some other time.
Supporters of the article argued that having a plan would help the town balance competing interests, such as developers and land preservations and avoid costly lawsuits in the future.
It could also help the town secure more funding, including from state grants, some of which are awarded on a point system that rewards communities that show they are at least trying to develop a master plan.
''We have three colleges, one of which is wealthier than many small countries,'' Precinct 1 member Margaret Gage, said, referring to Amherst College. ''We have to have a plan to mobilize the resources we have.''
Wentworth Farm
Members did not support designating 66 acres known as Wentworth Farm as permanent conservation land. The land, which the town acquired over several decades ago and has, at times, considered developing for some municipal use, is one of most ecologically rich parcels in town, according to the Conservation Commission.
Visible in part from Route 9 near Old Farm Road, it abuts Fort River and is frequented by wildlife and walkers. Fewer than four acres are considered developable, because much of the property is wetland.
Town Meeting has considered whether to permanently restrict it from development four times before. A two-thirds majority was needed, but supporters of the proposal could only muster a 96-60 majority.
Opponents of the measure, including Finance Committee members, said it would be wise to leave the land as it is without the added protection. There appears to be no prospect that the land will be developed. But should the town want to develop another property that is near some other conservation land, it could exchange a small piece of the Wentworth property for an equal amount of that other land.
It would allow the town to preserve the total amount of conservation land while still allowing for some desirable municipal development.
''Why would we want to tie the hands of future generations?'' Finance Committee member Irvin Rhodes asked.
Francesca Maltese, chairwoman of the Conservation Commission, said more is stake than just the Wentworth Farm property.
''Even if no one can build on Wentworth Farm, to leverage this and take some of other piece of conservation land out of conservation is almost an ethical issue to deal with. We don't want to use Wentworth Farm to break the covenant on another piece.''
Town Meeting also heard from the Committee on the North Amherst Land Use Study, which reported that it had found no other uses for property off Rolling Ridge Road other than the one now on the table. That is 250 units of student and affordable housing proposed by JPI Development, of Irving, Texas. The Select Board now will decide whether to approve that project, which would then need a comprehensive permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals.
About a dozen Hope Church members attended the meeting and sat silently in the back of the auditorium. Moderator Harrison Gregg said that the committee would only get to the present its report with no questions or comment by Town Meeting members or observers.
Among Town Meeting's other actions:
