WHATELY — Town officials are looking for public input and will hold a special informational meeting Tuesday at the Elementary School starting at 7 p.m. to discuss a few major projects.
Specifically, discussion will center around a proposed merger of the Whately Water District and Water Department, landscaping for the historic center district, town hall renovations and an affordable housing trust fund.
Select Board member Fred Orloski said the meeting is “an effort to get more people involved and informed of major projects before special or annual town meetings.”
According to an information sheet, “there are currently two public water supplies in the Town of Whately. We propose to merge the two systems to insure adequate water for the center of town. The goal is to provide long-term water security and fire protection for residents.”
To facilitate the merger, a pump station would need to be installed and an engineer hired, which would have “significant costs.” The Whately Water District and the Water Department, founded in 1971 and 1984 respectively, would be connected near the town center cemetery where they “come within several hundred feet of each other.”
Info Page for Major Projects Mtg Whately by Andy Christian on Scribd
In 2015, the town employed the Conway School of Landscape Design to “study the Town Center Historic District, with a focus on traffic calming, sidewalks, landscaping, stormwater runoff, lighting and parking.”
Since then, the school created a conceptual design “to make Town Center more welcoming and walkable for residents and visitors.”
Most recently, an ad hoc committee appointed by the Select Board helped facilitate a few open meetings where they discussed and gathered thoughts from residents, and identified a few priorities, “many of which will be eligible for Complete Streets funding from the (state Department of Transportation).”
Those include repositioning the sidewalks and adding lighting, crosswalks, added and improved parking, improving the Veterans’ Memorial and also improving drainage.
In 2012, the town established the Whately Housing Committee to help the Community Preservation Committee find affordable housing — and possibly senior housing — projects that the town would reasonably be able to fund using CPA money.
Now, the town is looking to create a trust “to provide for the acquisition, creation, preservation, rehabilitation and support of affordable housing” to benefit “low- and moderate-income residents.”
The proposed trust would have a board that would be subject to open meeting laws, “would require an annual audit, and could not spend more than $10,000” per year without approval by the Select Board.
The trust would be funded annually by Town Meeting.
The town is looking to provide information and receive input on the future use of its Town Hall, which was vacated last year when the town’s offices moved to Sandy Lane.
Since then, officials have identified that the space could provide “a permanent home for the Whately Historical Society … an accessible second-floor auditorium that will provide multiple cultural and community organizations with space for performances,” and “a general meeting room for community groups.”
The building’s rehabilitation — facilitated through private gifts and CPA funds — will include a “small addition on the east to accommodate a platform lift,” stabilization of the building, updated insulation and air quality control, and new septic systems and windows.
An architect firm is completing design work this month.