Leverett to consider CPA requests that include Rattlesnake Road fix, historic schoolhouse repairs
Published: 10-25-2024 1:37 PM |
LEVERETT — Rehabilitation of the discontinued portion of Rattlesnake Gutter Road, which has become the town’s most popular place for walking, hiking and bicycling, and improving the historic Moore’s Corner Schoolhouse, are among more than $500,000 in requests for Community Preservation Act funding.
The two largest applications, with $230,000 for the road and $287,078 for the school building, have been submitted alongside six other requests, all of which will go through a review process by the Community Preservation Committee that began last Wednesday. That process will conclude with votes in March, when recommendations are brought to annual Town Meeting.
Being called the Rattlesnake Gutter Road Restoration and Improvement Project, the request for funding has support from town officials, who successfully appealed to the Franklin Council of Governments to discontinue that section of the gravel road. The money will go toward removing dead trees, upgrading drainage and rebuilding a stone retaining wall.
“This project seeks to restore and improve the section of Rattlesnake Gutter Road that is within the town-owned property known as the Rattlesnake Gutter Conservation Area,” reads the application written by Steve Weiss, a member of the Rattlesnake Gutter Trust, an organization that advocated for closing the road.
The application notes the county road was constructed in 1835, built on the northern side of the glacial ravine between Brushy Mountain and Cave Hill. Its stone wall was put in place with the use of oxen. The road remained fully open from Montague Road to North Leverett Road, except for during the winter months, until 2001, when sections of the stone wall, holding the road in place, collapsed during heavy rainstorms.
Support for the spending also comes from the Recreation Commission, Leverett Trails Committee, the trust and Police Chief Scott Minckler.
The other large request is for the 1810 Moore’s Corner Schoolhouse at 220 North Leverett Road, with money going toward the roof, windows, structural exterior woodwork and electrical.
Leverett Historical Society members Sara Robinson and Julie Shively wrote in the application that the town once had 10 schoolhouses, most of which are either lost or have been converted to homes, and the schoolhouse “provides a window into Leverett’s past educational practices and methodologies and also contains historical artifacts and documents that are important to the town’s legacy.”
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