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Williamstown in December completed an unusual transaction designed to eventually relocate hundreds of residents displaced by Tropical Storm Irene to a new senior housing complex.
Before the August 2011 storm, there were more than 225 mobile homes in a park known as The Spruces. But almost all of the mobile homes, which were rented at roughly $250 a month, were destroyed by the storm or have since been condemned, according to Town Manager Peter Fohlin.
He said the senior housing complex makes sense, since almost all of the displaced residents are in their 50s or older.
“Hopefully, there will be enough units there available for The Spruces residents to live there,” Fohlin said.
Town Meeting on Dec. 10 approved a complex arrangement that enables the town to obtain ownership of The Spruces by early 2016. Morgan Management, the developer, has agreed to accept $600,000 from a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant, which will enable the developer to pay off its mortgage on the property.
This action, according to Fohlin, was contingent on Williamstown accepting responsibility for overseeing the land until the town takes title in 2016. In return, Morgan Management will donate $4.1 million of its FEMA hazard-mitigation grants to cover Williamstown’s cost to compensate former residents of The Spruces and to clear what remains of the mobile home park.
Any money left over, according to the Dec. 10 warrant article, will be available for affordable housing.
The Board of Selectmen has committed $2.6 million, with an additional $400,000 expected to come later, for the affordable housing complex. The housing complex will be owned and managed by the Women’s Institute for Housing and Economic Development and the Berkshire Housing Development Corporation.
All three articles passed unanimously without debate.
“The town had been debating the question of affordable housing for about a year,” Fohlin said. “This is an issue that was pretty well-vetted and pretty well-understood.”