BERNARDSTON — After spending a year exploring options for a new fire station, the Fire Station Expansion Committee is asking residents to approve a $2.6 million total borrowing measure to support construction.
The vote will be during a special town meeting Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. at Pioneer Valley Regional School.
The proposal involves two articles. Residents will vote on borrowing measures to cover more than $2 million in construction costs for the proposed 7,290-square-foot metal building, and to purchase the $585,000 lot at 23 Kringle Drive. Both articles are contingent upon a Proposition 2½ debt exclusion vote in a special election.
The current station, at 18 Church St., is “extremely overcrowded,” Fire Chief Peter Shedd explained previously. The station houses four vehicles, with no room for the department’s three equipment trailers, which are stored outside, and has little office space.
The Fire Station Expansion Committee considered several properties and decided to pursue the more than five-acre Kringle Drive lot because it offers the most room for expansion and wouldn’t displace any residents. Though architects from Stevens & Associates agreed keeping with the town center’s aesthetic would require building with wood near the current station, a Kringle Drive building could be metal, which they said is cheaper to build.
Jane Dutcher, Finance Committee chairwoman and a member of the Fire Station Expansion Committee, estimated how much the tax rate would increase should both articles be passed.
Though the rate depends on whether the town pursues a 20-year or 30-year loan, and the loan’s interest rate, Dutcher said the tax rate would increase by about $1.09 per $1,000 valuation given a 20-year loan, or about 88 cents per $1,000 valuation given a 30-year loan. These estimated figures assume a 3.75 percent interest rate.
The Department of Revenue’s Division of Local Services website lists the average value of a Bernardston single-family home as being $203,372. Thus for the owner of a $200,000 home, Dutcher calculated taxes would increase by $218 per year (a total of $4,360 over the course of a 20-year loan), or $177 (a total of $5,310 over the course of a 30-year loan).
Though the fire station project serves as the warrant’s big ticket item, the warrant also includes seven other articles, of which two involve bylaw changes.
Bylaw revisions proposing temporarily prohibiting recreational marijuana facilities and regulating wireless telecommunication facilities, which were considered by the Planning Board during an August public hearing, will come before voters.
If passed, the recreational marijuana moratorium would be in effect through Dec. 31, 2018 or until bylaw amendments regulating recreational marijuana facilities are adopted, whichever comes first. It would temporarily prohibit such facilities, allowing Bernardston “sufficient time to engage in a planning process to address the effects of such structures (and) to adopt provisions of the zoning bylaw in a manner consistent with sound land use planning goals and objectives,” the draft bylaw amendment reads.
Planning Board Chairwoman Christina Wysk said previously that Bernardston’s current bylaw doesn’t regulate wireless telecommunication facilities, which include towers, antennas and accessory structures used to provide cell phone service, personal communications services, paging services, radio and television broadcast services, or similar services. Should an amendment be passed, telecommunication facilities would be allowed in all zones with a special permit, so long as companies minimize adverse visual effects, don’t incorporate advertising, build within height limitations, and regularly maintain and inspect their structure. Additionally, before new towers are approved, the amendment reads, applicants must prove it’s not feasible to locate their equipment on existing towers or buildings.
Other articles involve: appropriating up to $20,000 to purchase a vehicle for Shedd; allocating $7,000 to install new parking lot lights at Bernardston Elementary School; reimbursing the town buildings account by $15,000 due to Selectboard-approved improvements to the Highway Department; having the elected town clerk position become an appointed position; and allocating $294.29 to pay an fiscal year 2017 Police Department bill.
Reach Shelby Ashline at:
sashline@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 257