HADLEY — A project to extend a sewer line to Amherst’s wastewater treatment plant, which would increase Hadley’s ability to support future low- and moderate-income housing development, could be supported with Community Preservation Act money.
But while town officials are asking for $38,955 from the CPA account, or a 10% match toward a nearly $400,000 MassWorks infrastructure grant, members of the Community Preservation Committee last week appeared skeptical of this request.
“By supporting this, we can increase affordable housing in town,” said Jennifer Sanders James, the town’s assistant procurement officer, who presented the proposal on behalf of the town’s Department of Public Works.
Sanders James explained that the sewer line would be a “linchpin” of moving forward with affordable housing, noting that the current capacity of the town’s plant is 540,000 gallons of wastewater per day, and it is at 75% of capacity, meaning “limited available capacity for future increases.”
Under the proposal, the existing Mill Valley pump station would connect to the Amherst plant, which is situated in Hadley and was built in the late 1970s as a regional site. This would free up sewer capacity in Hadley for future developments that might arise through rezoning portions of Route 9 closest to Amherst, possibly with a state Chapter 40R Smart Growth district. A study coordinated by the University of Massachusetts, with Tighe & Bond consultants, shows around 700 new housing units, in all phases of development, with 190 of these units at the Hampshire Mall site.
Based on an advisory from Stuart Sagnor, executive director of the Community Preservation Coalition, though, using CPA money in this way may not be possible since it isn’t specific to affordable housing.
Community Preservation Committee Chairwoman Mary Thayer read Sagnor’s correspondence stating that a town can’t use CPA money for a general project where all users would benefit, not just those living in affordable housing. At the same time, she noted that the committee could make a different decision at its Sept. 8 meeting, with the recommendation going to a special Town Meeting in the fall.
Committee members were reluctant to support the spending.
While committee member Mark Dunn said he supports affordable housing, this might not be the way to do it.
“We don’t build this for the developers, we wait until the zoning ordinance has passed and there’s a project on the boards,” Dunn said.
Committee member Ray Mieczkowski said he is concerned about spending money on a study rather than building out a sewer connection for affordable housing.
“There are no plans yet because we haven’t designed the plans,” Sanders James said.
Other requests
The only other requests for CPA money this fall are coming from the Hadley Historical Society.
The first is $16,000 to hire a 10-hour per week archivist and curator to improve the management of its collection.
Alan Weinberg, a representative for the private organization, said many details about the artifacts in the collection are unknown, though unpaid interns this year began to bring the collection into the 21st century.
“What we need and what’s been suggested is we actually hire a professional archivist curator part time (for) up to a year,” Weinberg said.
The idea is to preserve, restore and catalog the collection, similar to what Hatfield is doing. “We’re taking a page out of their efforts, saying if they can do it, why can’t we do it?” Weinberg said.
The second $1,700 includes $1,000 to restore what Weinberg said is a “a very early and very rare” engraving of the Declaration of Independence, created during a time of patriotic fervor in the 1820s, and donated to the Hadley chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1909. When that organization went defunct, the historical society received the engraving.
“We would very much like to get it fixed up, restored, cleaned up and on display for next year, which would be the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” Weinberg said.
Another $700 would be spent to buy a display case for the Goffe Bible, printed in 1599 and owned by John Russell, the first minister of Hadley. The bible, which was returned to Hadley in the early 1980s, dates to when regicides William Goffe and Edward Whalley, who signed the death warrant for King Charles I, were hiding in town.
Goffe was likely reading from this Bible while staying out of sight in town. His legend includes being the so-called Angel of Hadley, possibly coming out of hiding to help the townspeople stave off an attack by Indigenous tribes in the 17th century.