Great Barrington — People now officially have a say in what happens at the contaminated former New England Log Homes site at 100 Bridge St.
The site’s owner, Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire (CDC), will hold a public information meeting at the Mason Library, 231 Main St., today (Wednesday, Jan. 4), at 5:30 p.m. to provide current plans for the site, get feedback and talk about how it will communicate with the public.
The 8-acre parcel on the Housatonic River has sat for more than 20 years, scraggly and undeveloped, and is still loaded with chlorinated organic compounds like dioxins and PCPs (pentachlorophenol). It is overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP). Plans for cleaning it to develop it into a $40 million retail, residential and office center haven’t gone so smoothly given cleanup and money challenges and its partially residential location. There are also wetlands and floodplain issues to contend with.
The original proposed $40 million development. At far right and to the left of the wastewater treatment plant, are the three affordable housing buildings with a total of 45 units.
A plan to remediate sections of the site to save money so the affordable housing could go forward was given a thumbs up in July by the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), which issued the CDC a comprehensive permit to carry on. It was controversial, making for some rough times at Town Hall; one member of the board voted no over concerns about the risks of partial remediation.
The MassDEP didn’t think it was a good idea, either, saying the plan could deepen groundwater contamination on a site that sits in a secondary water supply for the town of Sheffield, among other problems. This forced CDC consultants and engineers back to the drawing board, and that new plan should be submitted to the agency any day now.
The July Zoning Board of Appeals hearing about 45 affordable housing units on a partially remediated site was packed with concerned residents, CDC board members and town officials. Activist Nan Wile is in a white shirt, seated second from right in the second row. Photo: Heather Bellow
It was that plan to build 45 affordable housing units on a partially remediated site that roused citizen ire. The location of the housing on 2 acres next to the sewer plant didn’t help, either.
In October, a group of Great Barrington residents filed a Public Involvement Plan (PIP) with MassDEP, ironically, on the very day the agency said no to the CDC’s plan. A PIP provides this as part of its process for difficult brownfields like 100 Bridge St. It takes 10 people in a petition to trigger it.
Local activist Nan Wile was one.
“I want to be sure that the full 8 acres is going to be remediated as completely as possible so there is no opportunity for young kids to scramble around on or near contaminated soil,” she said.
Wile said the PIP “ensures that we’re kept abreast, and it includes a public repository for information, documents, everything is made available, any activity at the site is also made public, and there’s a mailing list for those who ask to be notified.”
“We want to be good stewards of that little piece of land,” she added.
Tim Geller, CDC’s executive director, who has advertised Wednesday’s meeting, said the CDC has had more meetings with MassDEP, and that the agency, in concert with other state agencies and the town, is trying to brainstorm new potential funding sources for the site.
From left, Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire (CDC) board members Richard Stanley, Jeff Cohen, attorney Peter Pucilosky and CDC’s executive director Tim Geller speaking on behalf of the 100 Bridge St. project before the Great Barrington Zoning Board of Appeals in July. Photo: Heather Bellow
When asked if there was still hope for the site, Geller said there was. He said engineers had proposed a strategy that MassDEP will likely sign off on and which is “financially feasible given the development options on the site.” Geller would not disclose the cost yet, however.
He added that the CDC is “moving full steam ahead on the affordable housing,” and submitting its funding application to the Department of Housing and Community Development in mid-February.
Geller said a good portion of Wednesday’s meeting isn’t to “talk about the remediation of the site, but about the PIP.” And once the CDC’s new remediation plan is in MassDEP’s hands, “the public will have a chance to comment on that.”
“The process is in a very positive place,” he added.
Wile said she and other citizens are going to use this PIP to keep the heat on since they weren’t that pleased with past decisions the CDC made about the site. “Their thinking was a little muddled in the way they were approaching it,” she said.
“The point is just to keep them on their toes.”