Williamsburg is at a crossroads. As we work on our comprehensive plan, we face a choice: Do we remain a quiet hilltown that people pass through, or become a larger community that welcomes unbridled growth as high housing prices push people out of Northampton?
I believe there’s a third way — and the signs are all around us. A $30 million regional greenway extension will bring cyclists and others through our downtown. Conservation organizations are raising $5.5 million to purchase and rewild the golf course. A brewery was acquired with potential — though the restaurant sits empty. We have three well-loved cafés and a new public safety complex with solar panels powering most municipal electrical loads. We have thoughtful, community-focused residents; the community plan public listening session and survey had over 20% resident engagement — that’s amazing!
This momentum is creating the kind of place where people want to be, stay, and thrive. A welcoming community open to change while making smart long-term investments. We should deliver an authentic community where locals and visitors naturally mix. By playing to our town’s historic strengths, we can offer genuine connection, thriving local businesses, and direct nature access — what people of all ages seek for healthy, vibrant living.
Our natural resources have always been one of these strengths. We have amazing trail systems needing better maintenance, sustainable design, and continuity. They’re owned by many different parties with different rules and priorities. With better coordination and shared vision, private landowners may open their land to be part of that network, a pattern common in rural towns. Picture long-distance hikers stocking up overnight at the market and finishing their adventure with dinner downtown. Or local kids biking stone wall lined forest roads to visit friends five miles away. Networked trails attract dedicated outdoor enthusiasts who spend locally.
Here’s what success looks like: traditional bed-and-breakfasts welcoming visitors. The brewery’s outdoor beer garden full of life and live music. Kids playing in school playgrounds after hours. Young and old picnicking in a new public park. Williamsburg becomes a base camp for regional recreation — the Holyoke Range, Thunder Mountain, DAR State Forest. The comprehensive plan should support this vision: encourage lodging, support more eateries and shops adopting innovative approaches like Local Burgy food truck, create the public park the community needs, and enable appropriate short-term rentals for resident economic benefit and visitor housing.
The greenway is coming — woohoo! But infrastructure alone won’t evolve us sustainably. We need to create the kind of community where people want to stay and others want to move — a place with energy, purpose, and connection to nature. This isn’t our first transformation. We were a robust Mill River industrial community until devastating floods. We rebuilt then. Today, climate change threatens Route 9 again. Yet we can build resilience through economic diversification. Outdoor recreation offers responsible development more climate-resilient than traditional commercial strips.
I’m writing from Scotland’s Highlands, where legal rights of public access across private lands have become fundamental to culture and economy. When communities embrace connecting people to place, everyone benefits. The question is: Will visitors and new residents come to Williamsburg as a destination to explore, invest, and build authentic lives? Or will we remain a pass-through community, struggling to keep our next generation? We have momentum. Let’s be intentional about where it takes us.
Adin Maynard is a Williamsburg resident and member of the Comprehensive Plan Community Advisory Committee and Chair of the Energy Committee. These views are his own.