AMHERST — With voters Tuesday narrowly approving a Proposition 2½ debt-exclusion override for a $67.2 million project to build two co-located elementary schools on the current Wildwood School site, Town Meeting next week is being asked to authorize the borrowing.
The project is one of 23 articles on the warrant that will be taken up beginning at 7 p.m. Monday at the Amherst Regional Middle School auditorium.
A two-thirds vote in support is needed by the town’s legislative body to borrow around $33 million, with the state picking up $34 million of the project cost. The project and associated spending is supported by the Select Board and Amherst School Committee.
The new school would replace the current Wildwood and Fort River schools, both of which use an open-classroom model that school leaders have argued is not conducive to learning.
If the warrant article passes, a reconfiguration will occur allowing all Amherst students in Grades 2 through 6 to be taught in one of the two, 375-student schools, and turning Crocker Farm School into early childhood education center.
Critics have argued that the project means neighborhood schools will be lost. For a home assessed at $300,000, the Finance Committee estimates that property taxes will rise an average of $318 a year over 25 years.
The warrant also includes spending related to other future building projects, including a new Department of Public Works headquarters and a new fire station for South Amherst.
The DPW/Fire Station Study Committee is seeking $75,000 to pay for a feasibility and site selection report for fire department needs, and $350,000 to prepare a schematic design and get construction cost estimates for a DPW building.
These projects, in addition to the new school and a proposed expansion of the Jones Library, are among about $100 million in building projects in the pipeline.
A request for $675,000 to acquire 24 Montague Road, the site of Village Auto Service. This will allow the town to move forward with realignment of the intersection of Sunderland and Montague roads, and would also provide parking for the North Amherst Library and a new green space connecting the library with the North Amherst School building and the ballfield.
Select Board member Douglas Slaughter said this fits into the larger context of planning for the roads and intersection in North Amherst.
While Town Meeting agreed in the spring to spend $550,000 from Community Preservation Act account to upgrade Groff Park with a new spray park, playground and pavilion, it is being asked to add $400,000, which would come from the state’s Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities program.
A series of zoning changes are aimed at increasing economic development in downtown and promoting affordable housing.
Three articles seek to change the limited business zoning to general business zoning on parcels along South Prospect Street, Triangle Street and North Pleasant Street.
These petitions came from Town Meeting member Jerry Guidera, who has said if they are adopted it could create a greater mix of residence, retail and office.
“My objective is to drive that kind of mixed use into the density of downtown,” Guidera said.
But without Planning Board support for the parcels on Triangle, Guidera will withdraw that article, and he will also reduce the number of properties affected on North Pleasant.
Planners are proposing to change the inclusionary bylaw, which mandates affordable housing be included in projects with 10 or more units when special permits are issued for use. The new rule would trigger the need for affordable housing when special permits for dimensional changes are needed.
“Article 18 would expand the affordability requirement in Amherst and could lead to additional affordable housing,” the Planning Board wrote in its report to Town Meeting.
Other zoning amendments are about streamlining processes, including reducing the 60-day review period for projects in the educational district, meaning projects at Amherst and Hampshire college campuses won’t be held up, adjusting requirements for when site plan review is needed and updating home business use regulations.
Other items include:
Spending $58,000 from the Water Fund to acquire a 2-acre parcel on Overlook Drive near Atkins Reservoir;
Considering temporary easements so the reconstruction of the bridge on Mill Street below the dam at Puffer’s Pond can move forward;
Taking up citizen petitions from Vincent O’Connor aimed at stopping the DPW building project until a backlog of road and sidewalk repairs are done, and preventing construction of a roundabout at the north end of downtown at the intersection of Triangle and East Pleasant streets.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
