Great Barrington — Next summer, if life doesn’t get back to its pre-pandemic normal, outdoor dining on Railroad Street will probably be a little better organized thanks to a consulting firm that has come up with a custom-made plan to improve the use of space.
Earlier this year, the town hired BETA, a planning and engineering group based in Rhode Island, to take a look at the outdoor dining area set up this summer on Railroad Street to help restaurant owners survive in the face of significant restrictions imposed by Gov. Charlie Baker to control the spread of COVID-19.
In mid-March after the pandemic asserted itself in the state, Baker used his executive authority to ban indoor dining in restaurants and bars and forbade gatherings of 25 people or more. Baker ultimately relented and allowed restaurants to reopen indoors at reduced capacity. But in the face of increasing infection rates, Baker earlier this month rolled back some aspects of his reopening plan and ordered a return to previous restrictions on bars and restaurants.
Restaurants were forced to get creative in order to survive to this point. In June, the town closed off Railroad and Castle streets and set up a makeshift outdoor dining area on weekends during the summer and fall. In a related development, businessman Richard Stanley opened the Barrington Courtyard, a seven-day outdoor dining venue in a parking lot between two properties he owns: The Triplex Cinema and the Barrington House. Both outdoor dining venues have closed for the winter.
See video below from Dec. 7 of the Great Barrington Selectboard hearing from engineer Kien Ho on proposed improvements to outdoor dining next year for Railroad Street. Fast forward to 1:51:23:
BETA engineer Kien Y. Ho briefed the selectboard last week on a variety of improvements he envisions to make Railroad Street a safer and friendlier environment for outdoor diners. Click here to see Ho’s brief “shared streets” presentation.
If the selectboard accepts the proposal, the 350-foot stretch from the top of the one-way Railroad Street to where it intersects with Main Street will continue to be restricted to one travel lane, roughly where the parking lane on the south side of the street is. The rest of the street, including the north parking lane and the existing single travel lane down the middle, will once again function as the dining area. The partial closure is only in effect on Fridays and Saturdays from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m.
The existing width of Railroad Street curb-to-curb is 34 feet. Eight-foot-wide parking lanes are on both sides. The proposed travel lane on the far right will be 14 feet wide, more than the standard travel-lane width of 10 feet, in order to accommodate emergency vehicles such as fire engines and to provide a 2-foot buffer between vehicles and the proposed planters that will mark the boundaries of the dining area.
Ho also proposed increased signage. There are no signs on Main Street, for example, telling motorists of the availability of dining on Railroad Street. Ho suggested the placement of a character generator sign, or portable message board, similar to those at construction sites.
The board agreed to evaluate the information at a later date and decide whether to accept the plan or alter it.
In August, the town received a $70,000 grant for COVID-related outdoor space on Railroad Street. The grant covers the cost of temporary signage and barriers that are used to narrow the vehicle lane, freeing up space on the street for safe, socially distanced dining during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still no locations identified for dog park
The question of where to locate a dog park remains unanswered. The situation has taken on increased urgency with a series of complaints about unleashed dogs, prompting town manager Mark Pruhenski to issue a news release in August headlined “Leash up, pick up: Town stepping up enforcement of leash laws and dog waste violations.”
At the Sept. 21 meeting of the selectboard, Pruhenski presented members with an executive summary of the situation. Both police and animal control officer Shep Evans were instructed to step up enforcement at the McAllister Wildlife Refuge and Lake Mansfield Park.
Pruhenski recommended that the selectboard ask the Conservation, Parks, and Cemetery commissions, which have jurisdiction over various town-owned properties, whether they could identify any of those venues as suitable for a dog park.
“All three of those boards discussed this topic in public session but unfortunately none of the three had any obvious dog park locations to offer,” Pruhenski said. “The search for a suitable location for a dog park continues.”
Selectboard member Ed Abrahams said a possible location has been identified. The town recently executed a tax foreclosure on a property near Camp Eisner in the Brookside Road neighborhood.
The property remains in town hands but it still has a building on it that would need to be demolished. Beyond that possibility, Abrahams surmised that, “At this point, there aren’t any options.”
The nearest dog parks to Great Barrington are the French Park Dog Park in Egremont, Kennedy Park in Lenox and the Salisbury Community Dog Park on Long Pond in Connecticut. After the Great Barrington Fairgrounds changed ownership in 2012, plans called for the creation of a public dog park but, like most of the rest of the project, it has yet to materialize.
In the absence of a functioning dog park, some dog owners have taken their pets to the Elmwood Cemetery, which serves the town, St. Peter’s Church and Ahavath Sholom. It’s located off Stockbridge Road. Families of the dead have complained of dogs defecating on the graves of loved ones.
Host community agreement accord reached with new pot shop
The selectboard also approved a host community agreement with Coastal Cultivars LLC, which will operate a retail marijuana store at 454 Main St. at the former store of McTeigue & McClelland, a high-end independent jeweler across from the police station.
Click here to see a description of the agreement marijuana companies must negotiate with host communities, as mandated by the state Cannabis Control Commission. Click here to see the one drafted by Coastal and presented by its attorney, Peter Puciloski.
Puciloski offered the standard agreement, in which Coastal will pay a community impact fee to the town of 3% of its sales, along with a $10,000 annual donation to a nonprofit of its choice.
Coastal received a special permit from the selectboard last month. The permit was more controversial than usual because, contrary to the town’s zoning bylaws, the planned shop sits within 200 feet of the property of John Dewey Academy, a private school at Searles Castle that is reportedly relocating to New Marlborough in the next few months.
