BERNARDSTON — After years of changing plans and various hurdles, the town has acquired property at 12 Church St. that will be used as part of its pending Fire Station development.
Selectboard Chair Robert Raymond said there are no official design plans for development at this time. The eventual plans may see the Church Street property demolished, and used for Fire Department buildings or parking space. The town had been discussing tentative plans, but this has all been put on hold following the COVID-19 outbreak.
“We just have had so many other things going on, but we do own the property now,” Raymond explained.
The property was donated to Bernardston, for use by the Fire Department, by Frank “Bud” Foster. Foster had originally offered to donate the property to the town in early 2017, but there were concerns from residents that this would displace the tenants who lived in the house at the time.
“The woman who lived there moved to Greenfield,” Raymond said. “It’s unoccupied now.”
This is not the first time that Foster, founder and former owner of Foster’s Supermarket in Greenfield, has donated land to the department. In late 2016, Foster had also donated a strip of lawn about 50 feet wide and 150 to 200 feet long that was immediately behind the Fire Station on Hartwell Street. Fire Chief Peter Shedd said previously that Foster also contributed when the current station was constructed in the early 1970s.
The journey to building a new Fire Station began in late 2016 with the appointment of the Fire Station Expansion Committee. Shedd has previously said the current Fire Station is not large enough to meet the department’s needs. Because of its tight quarters, fire trucks need to be driven out from the station before the firefighters can hold training sessions or lay out hoses to dry. It houses four vehicles, with no room for the department’s three equipment trailers, which are stored outside.
Any design plan or spending for a new station’s development would need to be approved during Town Meeting, and Raymond said the upcoming May Annual Town Meeting has been postponed indefinitely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gov. Charlie Baker recently approved allowing Town Meetings to be held past the end of the current fiscal year, but the Selectboard has not considered new dates for the meeting or town election yet.
Bernardston was previously eligible for $1 million in state funding to use to build a new Fire Station. However, Raymond said the town lost the funding last year when its plan was not approved. Raymond said Bernardston will apply for grant funding again when the town’s plans are “shovel ready.”
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com or 413-930-4579.