To the Editor:
I am writing about the proposed hotel use of the former Searles School. My purpose in doing so is to try to shed light on how the present confusion arose. Here is the bylaw concerning the room limits with the Section 3 that the Town Meeting passed.
7.10.2 Room Limits.
- No hotel or motel shall contain more than 45 rental rooms.
- The limit in District B2A shall be 30 rental rooms.
- The Special Permit Granting Authority may authorize a deviation from the room limits above when hotels and motels are proposed as a component of a project that redevelops or reuses historic structures. Said structures are those listed on the State or National Register of Historic Places, a designated property in a Local Historic District, or determined in writing by the Great Barrington Historical Commission as historically, culturally, or architecturally significant to the town. [added 5/5/2014 ATM]
The discussion on Article 14 of the Warrant of the Great Barrington Annual Town Meeting of May 5 2014, where Section 3 was introduced as a proposed addition, opened with the Planning Board Report of the proposed bylaw change. In the report the words “redevelop or reuse historic structure” were used. The word “redevelop” has recently become a source of confusion as some definitions of that word include the possibility that demolition can be part of redevelopment.
Obviously, words in the discussion around a bylaw change cannot be substituted directly into a bylaw. However, it is common practice that the discussion be referred to as a way to clarify the intent of a bylaw.
Following are transcriptions from the CTSB video of the Town Meeting. The sound quality is not great so I apologize in advance for any errors. [Click here for a link to the video]
At 1 hour, 48 minutes and zero seconds into the Town Meeting, during the discussion of Article 14, Jack Musgrove offered the following contribution: “We on the Planning Board felt that this allowing creative reuse of some of our older buildings could potentially provide a vehicle for those buildings to be reused”
At the time marker of 1 hour, 50 minutes and zero seconds. A participant [name inaudible] offers a summary of the discussion with the following words:
“So, I just want to be clear, Jack, this is only for reuse of empty historic buildings?”
Mr. Musgrove responds, “Correct. This only applies to a historic building, like the mills in Housatonic or the Searles building or the Searles Castle or any other designated historic building that could be turned into a hotel. But the Selectboard would still have to approve that hotel being constructed in that historic building.”
Voted at 1:50:40 by a 2/3 majority as required for it to pass. If you actually count the cards being held up in the video it appears to pass by a 5/6 majority.
I believe that taken together the words in the above transcripts, especially Mr. Musgrove’s final eight words, “[,,,] that hotel being constructed in that historic building,” make it abundantly clear that our singular understanding of the intent of the bylaw at that time was to facilitate the preservation of historic structures.
For additional views leading up to the current situation see David Scribner’s excellent article in The Edge on June 3rd, “Historic Commission gives green light to Great Barrington hotel project at Searles School.” It gives detail and clarity to the process.
Nick Stanton
Great Barrington
