Lee — The Select Board unanimously approved a single tax rate for the upcoming fiscal year 2025. The October 15 measure applies equally to residential and open-space property owners, as well as commercial, industrial, and personal property owners.
According to Tax Assessor Sarah Navin, as of September 30, the Bureau of Local Assessments valued the town’s properties at $1.43 billion. The average single-home value for a Lee residence is $406,437.03 and, with 1,855 single family homes within its borders, the total home value is tabulated at about $753.94 million, she said.
New construction added $6.18 million to the real estate, commercial, and industrial construction value, Navin said, and personal property added an additional $26.8 million, resulting in a total new-growth value for fiscal year 2025 of $33 million. She said this latter increase will help lower the tax rate.
According to Navin, the reason for the significant amount of personal property new growth this year is from one single account that recorded $21.7 million. “I just wanted you all to be aware of that,” she remarked to the dais. “Normally we don’t have that high of a new growth.”
The fiscal 2025 excess levy capacity—or the difference between the tax levy and amount the town raised/appropriated—will be $4.22 million, Navin said, recommending a single tax rate for this fiscal year.
Historically, the town has maintained a single tax rate, Select Board Chair Gordon Bailey said. “Personally, I don’t see any reason to change at this point,” he said. “I think that sometimes this flat rate might send the wrong message to commercial and industrial people that maybe we’re not as friendly to having them in town. I think that right now we have a very good mix of residential and commercial and businesses and I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from coming to town if we had an exorbitantly high tax rate on commercial.”
Representatives of the Lee Youth Association (LYA) approached the dais to update board members on their push to relocate the group to permanent headquarters at 170 Greylock Street after presenting the project during the October 1 Select Board session.
LYA is a nonprofit organization that offers educational and recreational programs for infants and youth from Lee, Becket, Lenox, Otis, Pittsfield, Sandisfield, Stockbridge, and Tyringham. Its proposal includes a 6,150-square-foot, regulation-sized gymnasium; outdoor playing spaces adjacent to classrooms; added parking spaces to be shared with the adjacent ballfields for their overflow; and a drop-off/pick-up circle in the center, with a new driveway to be constructed on Maple Street.
The land is currently under the purview of the Lee Middle School/High School Facilities Committee as it was originally slated for educational facility use. Questions remain for town officials and LYA officers as to whether the project will entail a lease or purchase agreement.
LYA Executive Director Sharon Terry, accompanied by LYA President Ali Zabian, said the current lease for the group is up in four years and her team has been searching for property as a base for the project. The tract selected runs along Maple Street and has already been cleared for use as a practice field. The proposal includes two phases, with the new building offices and childcare center incorporated into the first phase and the gymnasium construction to encompass the second phase.
To move the project forward, the Select Board unanimously agreed to execute a Declaration of Surplus Property, announcing that the five-acre parcel is no longer needed and serving as the first step in a longer process that entails posting a qualifications-based request for proposal, or RFP, offering a $1 lease on the property for 99 or a varying number of years, according to Town Administrator Christopher Brittain. Certain criteria would be specified for applicants such as daycare operators and established nonprofit organizations, he said, with a committee assigned to review interested parties, rating the best-fitting responders based on their qualifications. “It’s not a money-type bid but qualifications based, based on who met the qualifications the best,” Brittain said, adding that it is unknown who and how many interested parties will respond to the RFP.
A Town Meeting vote is needed as the contract would be for more than three years. That meeting could be called as a special session in December or January, with the vote possibly taking place as late as the town’s May annual meeting. Then a lease contract could be entered into between the town and the prevailing applicant.
“It won’t be a short contract with whoever we settle at, that’s for sure,” Bailey said. “There’s going to be a lot of contingencies involved.”
Resident Josh Bloom, on Zoom, voiced concern over the quickness of the project, citing the Select Board as possibly making a “premature” and “hasty decision” during the evening.
A survey conducted last year by the Lee Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) Committee showed that only 10 percent of the 266 responders were “very satisfied” with the existing places for town youth to play, he said. The OSRP found Lee deficient in meeting many of the of the recreational needs of the population, Bloom added. He said the town’s new Master Plan calls for a task force to be assembled “to assess the need for a community center,” determining its site and developing programming, with that to occur between 2024 and 2026.
“I think it would be wise for the town and the Select Board to see how a more shared vision of an LYA town facility could be mutually beneficial, a vision that incorporates the thought processes for a potential community center and for the town’s vision of expanded areas for youth, open space, and recreation,” Bloom said.
He touted a new local youth recreation program, Wildcat Sports Group that offers softball and soccer teams, as having an “additional vision for an indoor/outdoor sports facility in Lee” and advocated bringing all three “visions together into one design” between public and private entities before moving forward.
Wildcat founder and owner Simon Borrett addressed the Select Board and confirmed that his team hasn’t selected a site for the nonprofit organization, with his group’s initial goal to bring back local youth programs. “The goal and the vision of the entity itself is to, down the road, have something [facility],” he said.
Bailey also questioned whether a path exists to add to the four-acre tract since the plot goes all the way to Greylock Street, providing for the visions of both entities, LYA and Wildcat.
Select Board member Robert “Bob” Jones agreed and said he didn’t see the two organizations being in conflict with each other. “And there may be a way to move this together,” he said. “Or you may be able to move both of them forward individually, but that is going to require some conversations and negotiation, identifying needs, identifying lands that are available, proximity from one organization. Ultimately, it’s going to be up to the town as a whole anyway, but I think it’s a worthwhile conversation.”
A public Open House focused on the project is scheduled for October 21, at 5:30 p.m., at the Lee Youth Association, 480 Pleasant Street.
The Select Board also approved signing a $200,000 purchase and sale agreement, $20,000 less than the appraised value, for 27.1 acres at 35 Tamarack Avenue. Town Meeting approval is needed for the sale to go through.
Jones pointed out that the property would make one contiguous tract owned by the town, from Center Street to Maple Street. “And that’s, that’s a nice chunk of land for the town to have at its disposal,” he said.
By encompassing a block of land, Bailey said the tract could possibly serve as a sports recreational field in tandem with the school district although it wouldn’t be able to accommodate a 12,000-square-foot standalone community center.
At the meeting, the Select Board also:
- Approved an application for a transfer and change of location for an annual wine and malt package store license from Global Montello Group Corporation doing business as Convenience Plus at 241 Main Street to Krupa Realty Inc. doing business as Rocky Mart at 245 Housatonic Street located on the same tract as McDonald’s restaurant;
- Signed a Proclamation designating October 18, the 52nd anniversary of The Clean Water Act, as Save the Housatonic Day, with a celebration at noon at the town gazebo;
- Approved a utility-cut permit at 78 Main Street that had already been performed due to a sewer issue;
- Approved a temporary sign permit and fee waiver for St. Mary’s Church in conjunction with its holiday bazaar;
- Appointed Susan Burns as an election worker; and
- Stated Halloween trick-or-treating will be October 31, from 5 to 7 p.m.
