Development of the Northampton State Hospital campus, generally referring to the demolition of the old State Hospital buildings or the construction of new ones.
One of the things I liked most about attending Smith College in the mid 90′s was the abandoned mental asylum located just beyond the athletic fields.
What English major and aspiring writer doesn’t want to go to school in the shadow of a Gothic castle in which people were once shocked, water-boarded, and sent into insulin coma? The Smith girls brave enough to enter the asylum said the walls were smeared in blood. Eighteen, Gen X, and goth, this impressed me immensely.
It was also a good place to take girls.
The asylum had been the site of one of my first dates with my wife. I was 22 and knew nothing about women. She was 32, classy, tough, and athletic–a perfect combination. Plus, she was incalculably rich–in my barely-post-college estimation–that is to say, she had a real job. She was a catch. I had to impress her so I bought a bottle of cognac and took her drinking in the woods behind the asylum.
My wife married me, so the asylum date must have worked.
This summer, I thought I’d go back to pay homage. After all, my wife married me, so the asylum date must have worked. Plus the asylum was the inspiration for my first novel, Dysphoria, and I was still basking in the glow of graduating from aspiring writer to published author.
“They tore it down,” my friend said.
I took the news like the news of a sudden death. I didn’t believe it. Leaving my friends in town, I trudged across the athletic fields, hoping reports of the asylum’s demolition had been overblown. It had to be there. It was so massive, so dark, so unspeakable. It couldn’t really be gone.
But it was. It was worse than gone. It was gone, and in its place, someone had built an idyllic suburb, with water-saving landscaping, communal bike sheds, and green space. There was bark dust and Japanese maples and little children running through sprinklers.
From BusinessWest
By Elizabeth Taras
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Northampton-based Builders Make a Living on the Cutting Edge
Mark Ledwell, left, and Jonathan Wright. Image care of BusinessWestIt’s called the “home of the future” by its designer, Bruce Coldham of Coldham & Hartman Architests in Amherst, but it’s being lived in today.
This would be the 2,700-square-foot structure in Hadley that was honored by GreenBuilder magazine with one of its ‘Home of the Year’ awards in 2011, the only house in the Northeast to be so recognized. There are many numbers associated with this dwelling — and that prestigious award — but the most significant is 33, or minus 33, to be more precise.
That’s what the house earned for a Home Energy Rating, or HERS, which means that it produced 33% more energy than it consumed for the previous year, said Jonathan Wright, founder and president of Northampton-based Wright Builders, which constructed the home.
“Through an extremely well-designed plan, a very tight building envelope, and PV [photovoltaic] panels, we went way past zero,” said Wright, referring to the term ‘net zero’ — a benchmark used to describe structures that don’t consume more energy than they create — and putting heavy emphasis on the word ‘way.’
The GreenBuilder award judges were suitably impressed, noting that “this home’s building science is well ahead of the curve.”
That term is one increasingly used in association with projects undertaken by Wright, a nearly 40-year-old company that specializes in residential, commercial, and institutional building, and has a hard-earned reputation for being on the cutting edge of new building processes and techniques, especially with regard to energy consumption and conservation.
“Before these certifications were around, we just considered it smart building,” said Mark Ledwell, Wright’s long-time partner and the company’s co-principal, referring to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and other building benchmarks used today. “We’ve tried to keep abreast of the materials and new technologies and stay on the cutting edge; we want to make buildings that last.”
This philosophy has guided the company through every project in a broad portfolio that includes everything from a host of buildings at Smith College (one of the firm’s many clients in the education sector) to several components of the multi-faceted initiative taking shape on the grounds of the former Northampton State Hospital.
A city tax break for the $13.4 million, 50,000-square-foot Christopher Heights of Northampton Project in the Village Hill neighborhood has been approved by the state.
Developer Grantham Group will save $213,900 in property taxes over 15 years, according to a news release issued this week by the state Office of Housing and Economic Development. Grantham Group, based in Boston, already has four other assisted living centers in Worcester, Webster, Attleboro and Marlborough.
Economic Assistance Coordinating Council approved this and 18 other projects for participation in the Economic Development Incentive Program at meetings last week. The list includes manufacturing projects in Lee, Adams and Pittsfield. In total, the projects are expected to create 2,347 new jobs and retain 3,102 existing jobs, in addition to leveraging nearly $406 million in private investment and supporting construction projects across the commonwealth.
Grantham Group has said there will be 65 construction jobs. Once built, there would be another 40 permanent jobs at the facility. The facility will have will consist of 71 studio apartments and 12 one-bedroom apartments.
Grantham Group managing director Walter Ohanian said Friday that the company is still applying for low-income tax credits. If that application is successful he hopes to start construction in February.
Grantham has planned the project for a 1.3-acre site on the former state hospital grounds it will lease from MassDevelopment for 80 years. Forty-three of the 83 units will be reserved as affordable housing. MassDevelopment owns the former hospital site.
From The Republican
By Fred Contrada
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Shaw’s Motel, photo by Dale Ruff, The RepublicanThe Historical Commission voted Monday to invoke the demolition delay ordinance for Shaw’s Motel at 87 Bridge St., but left room for a new owner to knock the building down sooner than a year from now.
According to Sarah LaValley, the Planning Department liaison to the commission, the demolition delay ordinance protects buildings from demolition for up to one year. Established in 2005, the ordinance allows the Historical Commission to put a moratorium on demolishing buildings that are deemed to have historical significance.
Shaw’s was run for more than a half century by Josephine A. Shaw, who rented its rooms mostly to the poor and needy, some of them former Northampton State Hospital patients. She sold the 20-unit motel, along with houses at 7 and 9 Pomeroy Terrace, to her son, Donald Shaw in 2010. The properties were then put on the market for an asking price of $1.6 million.
North Attendant’s Building, Northampton State HospitalThe doors and windows of the North Attendant’s building have been removed in preparation for transformation. If to be demolished the loss of this 3 story rectangle is as unremarkable as its place in Northampton State Hospital and institutionalization history.
By 1919 the North Attendant’s home was all complete. Also known as the North Home and the Nurses’ Home, it was built to house 63 nurses, replacing two smaller buildings behind Old Main from the 1890s. The State Hospital under Superintendent Dr. John A. Houston was crossing the threshold of 1000 inmates. Through the Annual Reports the Superintendent and Trustees decry the poor funding, staffing and conditions of their own facility, even though two new buildings, including the North Attendant’s home have just been paid for.
From the superintendent’s report it will be noted that our condition of overcrowding continues despite the many patients, 92 in number, transferred to institutions in the eastern part of the State. We still believe that our hospital should care for all the patients of the district served by it, and we refer to the recommendations repeatedly made in former reports for suitable provision within the district for all the mental cases of western Massachusetts. This matter is so important that we feel it our duty to again call attention to it. The present conditions are not just to the institution nor to the patients who are here and the patients who are to come to us.
Northampton State Hospital Annual Reports. (1919, November 30), pp.7.
In the 1920 Annual Report the Superintendent details major staffing shortfalls, reporting that the State Hospital has been operating with nearly 100 fewer staff than prescribed. Only two doctors served the entire population.
All the routine activities of the hospital were conducted as usual, but under great stress, due to an extreme shortage of help in all departments. With a quota of 223 employees allowed us the average number on our pay roll throughout the year was only 127, and at times there were less than 100. Every one did extra duty. On the wards and in some other departments patients were given keys and conducted themselves as well as the employees, so well, in fact, that eight patients were placed on the pay roll.
Northampton State Hospital Annual Reports. (1920, November 30), pp.11.
Houston details the overcrowded conditions of the State Hospital in the 1921 Annual Report in another attempt for adequate funding.
Serious overcrowding makes it difficult to give our patients the care we should like to give. Too many of them are obliged to share a room with others. This is disquieting to the relatives and does not contribute to the comfort of the patients themselves. We realize that every State hospital has the same problem to deal with, and we accept the situation with what grace we may, hoping that in time adequate provision will be made for the care of all the patients of our district somewhere in this district, and not so far from their homes as are the institutions to which so many have been transferred in recent years.
Northampton State Hospital Annual Reports. (1921, November 30), pp.7.
And again regarding staffing in 1922, two years after the completion of the North Attendant’s building.
Despite frequent advertising and repeated applications to the employment bureaus, we have been unable to fill our quota of nurses and attendants. The quota of women nurses allowed us last year was 58, but the average number on the pay roll during the year was only 31. We have been fortunate in having patients comfortable and quite trustworthy, to help in the care of the wards and of other patients. Nine of them are now acting very acceptably as nurses and to their own pleasure and benefit, and four have done so well that they have been put on our pay roll.
Northampton State Hospital Annual Reports. (1922, November 30), pp.10.
Houston continues in the ’22 report…
The Department of Mental Diseases estimates our capacity at about 820, which is considerably larger than our estimate. The numbers we have been requested to maintain during each of the past five years have been, consecutively, as follows: 980, 990, 1,000, 1,010, 1,025, and for the coming year we are asked to make estimates for the maintenance of 1,060 patients. As a result of this constantly increasing growth in numbers, we have been seriously handicapped in the care of our patients. We cannot transfer our most troublesome patients, consequently a larger proportion of those who remain are of the disturbed class. The wards where easily distracted patients are cared for should accommodate only a very limited number of patients, but now our wards are occupied by anywhere from 40 to 60 patients, and many of these are obliged to sleep in corridors and day spaces. Naturally and inevitably they have an un-favorable influence on each other.
Northampton State Hospital Annual Reports. (1922, November 30), pp.11.
Like any building on Hospital Hill, the North Attendant’s home was as insignificant as staffing, funding and treatment were to the State Hospital system. Though the 1000 inmate threshold far exceeded the State’s own maximum for the facility, which in turn exceeded the staff’s estimate, the population would only continue to grow over the next three decades to reach 2500.
From The Republican
By Fred Contrada
Thursday, November 8, 2012
The Community Preservation Committee voted Wednesday to recommend $412,400 in funding for six projects, including the Connecticut River Greenway, a baseball field and the restoration of an old fountain on Village Hill.
The committee oversees Community Preservation funds that the city has been collecting by way of a property tax surcharge since voters adopted the state Community Preservation Act in 2005. Money from the fund, by law, may be used only for projects related to conservation, housing, historical preservation and recreation. There is $980,000 available in Community Preservation funds for fiscal 2013, according to the city.
The committee, which received eight applications in the latest round, has opted to fund six projects. It allocated $75,000 to restore the Victorian-style, cast-iron fountain that once stood in front of the main building at Northampton State Hospital. Following the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals in the 1990s, the buildings on the campus were demolished. A range of housing now stands at the site. The fountain will be reinstalled as a memorial to the patients and employees who lived and worked at the hospital.
From The Republican
By Ellie Cook
Monday, October 4, 2010
Fall’s here, and with winter bearing down, projects race to the finish. If this most beautiful season proves long, work can go on right through November.
Village Hill, where the state hospital used to be (the R44 bus still has a Hospital Hill sign), has undergone a huge transformation in the past few years. At first it seemed that people were wary of buying into the new development, and the economy didn’t help.
But according to city businessman and longtime real estate agent Pat Goggins, the Kollmorgen Electro-Optical Corp. plant going up on the South Campus makes people more confident that the development will take hold. “The community has finally decided that it’s really going to happen up there,” he said last week.
He commented, as many have, on the development’s “walkability,” situated as it is about three-quarters of a mile from town, with its bike and walking paths.
Goggins, who is handling the marketing of new homes in the development, talked about the work along the eastern side of the North Campus on Olander Drive.
In the area called Morningside, four single-family houses have been built there, and all of them are now sold, the latest one early this month. Six more will be finished by early next summer; of those, four are “going into the ground in the next six weeks,” builder Jonathan Wright said last week. All six are under deposit, Goggins said. A total of 11 are planned, according to Wright.
Wright attributed the keener interest in those homes to the builders’ expanding the original two designs to seven, some of them “cottage” and “farmhouse” style – a bit smaller and less expensive. The cost ranges from $479,000 to $589,000.
The three four-condo townhouses, opposite Morningside, are two-thirds built. The first building is already entirely owner-occupied. The second is nearly finished, and two of those four condos are under deposit. Around the corner, the final building is set for a spring finish, with one condo already under deposit. They go for $269,000 to $379,000.
From The Gazette
by Chad Cain
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Off the Beat: Village Hill picks up steam, despite economy
An anemic economy may have slowed momentum at Village Hill Northampton, but efforts to develop the former state hospital grounds into a mix of homes and businesses is picking up steam this summer.
On the north campus, where most of the homes are being constructed, Wright Builders Inc. reports that interest in its high-end subdivision has revved back up this year. The Northampton company is also a year ahead of schedule in its development of a cluster of townhouses.
Meanwhile, the state agency overseeing the sites overall development is in negotiations with a developer for a 26-home bungalow complex north of the community gardens. MassDevelopment is expected to ink a deal with that unnamed developer rather soon, said spokeswoman Kelsey Abbruzzese.
Finally, on the developments south campus, Kollmorgen Electro-Opticals new 140,000-square-foot manufacturing and office facility is expected to be completed in a few months, at which time the company plans to move its 370-plus employee workforce there from its King Street headquarters.
As for the home construction already under way, Jonathan Wright of Wright Builders said that nine of the 11 high-end, single-family lots in its Morningside subdivision are spoken for. Three of those homes are already built and one is under construction. Work on three more is slated for the fall, with two more to begin next spring.
Meanwhile, the 12-unit Eastview townhouse complex is selling fast. The first of three buildings is finished, with the units selling for between $269,000 and $349,000, depending on their location and whether they have two or three bedrooms.
A lot of people put in applications at the Hilltop Apartments on Village Hill when it opened three years ago, drawn by assurances from its developer, Community Builders, that its apartments would remain affordable. Hilltop has many nice apartments, the upper floors have terrific views, but it still has an institutional air to it. Long windowless corridors, no community space to speak of.
Bill “W” lives there, for now. He is a recovered alcoholic, works in food service in a supermarket. The pace is fast, he deals with the public directly, he works hard, puts in a full forty hour week and sometimes a weekend shift. He earns about $26,000 a year. For the last three years, almost since it opened, he has lived there. It was a big step up from a chaotic druggy rooming house on Green Street where he used to live. Community Builders engineered an $8 million rebuild of the old nurses quarters at the State Hospital, creating 33 apartments. Of the 33 units, 18 were supposed to be low income housing units, 8 would be for Department of Mental Health clients, and seven would be market level. The rents varied, based on your income and the square-footage of the apartments. The range of monthly rents in 2006 were $645 – $850 for a one bedroom apartments, $626 to $1050 for a two bedroom, and $1,050 for the lone three bedroom unit.
The most prominent is the transformation of the former Northampton State Hospital campus, where ghosts of the past have finally been laid to rest. After decades of talk and bureaucratic maneuvers — along with $28 million spent on the demolition of numerous buildings, environmental studies, new utility installations, and other necessary measures to prepare the site for development — new residential and industrial growth has taken root.
Ward 4 City Councilor David Narkewicz has arranged for representatives of Kollmorgen Electro-Optical Corporation to present Hospital Hill neighbors with plans and drawings for its development of a new facility on the South Campus of the former Northampton State Hospital across Route 66 from Village Hill Road. Kollmorgen officials are scheduled to go before the Northampton Planning Board on May 28, 2009 for a Site Plan Review hearing on its new facility, so this meeting will provide neighbors with an opportunity to understand and ask questions about the project before that formal permitting process begins.
The Northampton Planning Board approves request by Hospital Hill LLC for a definitive subdivision on the north side of the campus at Moser Street, map 31C, section 017 (PDF). To get a clearer sense of where Moser Street is, refer to the Master Plan map (PDF).
From The Advocate
By Mark Roessler
Friday, March 13, 2009
Northampton’s Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC), the group charged with overseeing development on the site of the former Northampton State Hospital, met on Wednesday, March 4 to tie up a loose end.
Last fall, the committee debated the merits of a revised site plan for the housing development on Hospital Hill. The plan had no strong advocates. Committee members voiced concern that it was a departure from their stated goal of a village-like setting with a mix of commercial and residential buildings; the revised plan included over 100 new houses, overwhelming the scant commercial development. Many changes were requested, including the possibility of adding a community center, a park at the center of the development, and a more substantial memorial to the former state hospital and its patients.
Two meetings had been opened to public commentary, and the majority of the residents who spoke either had serious concerns about the plan or rejected it outright. Of all the speakers, only Jonathan Wright, whose Wright Builders is currently building 11 half-million-dollar mansions on the hill, urged approval of the plan so that those buying his properties will have an idea of the neighborhood they’re moving into.
From The Republican
By Fred Contrada
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
In January of 2005, MassDevelopment presented the Planning Board an artist’s conception of what the commercial portion of Village Hill Northampton could look like along Route 66. The drawing showed three three-story buildings up close to the street with awnings overhanging the sidewalk. One board member called the concept “sterile” and it was agreed that more trees would make the scene more pedestrian friendly.
No one yet knows what that stretch of road will look like once Kollmorgen Corp., a manufacturer of optical equipment, builds its new 130,000-square-foot facility on the site, but it is certain it won’t look anything the drawing of four years ago.
Despite some discontent about aesthetics, the Planning Board granted Kollmorgen a special permit last week to relocate on the south side of the former Northampton State Hospital complex. That portion was targeted for commercial and industrial development as part of the massive project that came to be branded Village Hill Northampton.
From The Local Buzz
By Greg Saulmon
Friday February 13, 2009
Photo: Greg Saulmon.
Here in the office, we try to keep tabs on the issues that are really driving discussion in the Pioneer Valley. A common thread among the issues that most frequently seem to pull people from online debate and conjecture and into actual civic engagement? Somebody trying to build something.
In almost any town you’ll find a plot of land that, all at once, represents several or all of the following: jobs; community; economic revitalization; short-sighted and visionless planning; a breakdown in the process of public discourse; environmental injustice; corporate greed.
So, my original plan: present a single gallery that toured a number of these contested developments, and that compared how the issues and the frame of the debate surrounding each appear to be influencing the outcomes. Instead, though, let’s work up to that. I’ll try to shoot one gallery each week to create a sense of each place; then, time willing, we’ll try to look at these in a little more detail.
From The Republican
by Fred Contrada
Sunday, February 15, 2009
As in recent years, Northampton is pinning its hopes for the economic future on a tract of land that was known in its hey-day as the home of the Northampton Lunatic Hospital.
The facility, which eventually changed its name to Northampton State Hospital, has been closed since the early 1990s. After a long struggle to wrest control of the land from the state, the city has slowly and painstakingly been working to realize its vision of a village of new commercial, industrial and residential space on the land formerly known as Hospital Hill.
With the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, a quasi-public agency, at the helm, the one-time hospital campus has undergone a complete makeover. Most of the buildings, including the iconic “Old Main” that served as the chief administration building, have been demolished and their rubble carted away. Traces of the hospital have even been excised from the name of the project, which is now called Village Hill Northampton.
An article published last week by The Republican details the Citizens Advisory Committee new subcommittee; the Amenity Subcommittee’s meeting in January regarding elements public reuse of the former State Hospital campus. Among other topics such as park space and playing fields the Amenity Subcommittee also discussed the reuse of the 1900 Stable.
Constructed between 1900 and 1901 this stable was built to replace a smaller wooden building. The older structure being rather close to the kitchen made it ideal for use as a cold storage unit, and thus too was at a somewhat unfortunate proximity for keeping horses.
The 1900 Stable was built into the hillside for the most part by regular employees with assistance by patients in framing, making mortar, and supplying the few hired masonry workers with materials. When the building was completed in 1901 Driving horses would be kept on the main floor and a hayloft (accessible from the door facing the State Hospital) was kept above. Upon completion in 1901 the building was valued at $6,000. For the sake of comparison the same year the State Hospital’s 550 acres of land were valued at $53,400 and Old Main was valued at $480,000.
Village Hill amenities considered
From The Republican
by Fred Contrada
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Will the Village Hill project include a community meeting room? Public parks? A playing field?
The biggest development in the city’s recent history has been taking shape slowly over the last decade and is still far from complete, but as the pieces begin falling into place, a subcommittee is imagining the final product.
The Village Hill Citizens Advisory Committee created an Amenity Subcommittee last year to explore just such topics. In a meeting earlier this month, members tossed out some ideas and suggestions for the mixed residential-commercial development, which is located on the grounds of the former Northampton State Hospital.
Narkewicz stressed on Tuesday that the subcommittee is at the beginning stage of its discussions.
“People were throwing out ideas,” he said. “They’re not really proposals.”
However, the topic has already caught the eye of Joseph Blumenthal, a member of the larger Citizens Advisory Committee. Blumenthal sent an e-mail to fellow committee members warning that it would be prohibitively expensive to convert the Coach House to meeting space and suggesting that the amenities subcommittee incorporate representatives from the Village Hill developers.
According to Anderson, MassDevelopment has targeted the Coach House for commercial use, along with a second building once used as a dormitory for male attendants at the hospital. The third surviving building from the state hospital complex is envisioned as live-work space for artists, Anderson said.
From The Republican
By Fred Contrada
Friday, December 12, 2008
The state Development Finance Agency cleared the first hurdle in its efforts to add 100 units of housing to Village Hill this week as the Citizens Advisory Committee overseeing the project approved the addition.
The Development Finance Agency is a quasi-public agency charged with developing the sprawling campus of the former Northampton State Hospital into a mix of commercial, industrial and residential space. The original plan called for 207 units of housing on the 536-acre property. A provision in the plan allowed for an expansion of up to 227 units without the city’s approval. If the latest request successfully passes through the city’s planning process, the number of units could grow to 327.
Some city residents said they are astounded that the state agency wants to add housing on Village Hill at a time when the real estate market has been in free-fall.
Together, Northampton–represented by a cast of dozens–and the Citizens Advisory Committee begin to demand more answers from Mayor Higgins and her get-rich-slow plan for Hospital Hill.
On Monday, Nov. 17, for the second time in its 14-year history, the Northampton Citizens Advisory Committee invited the public to participate in one of its meetings. More accurately, the CAC’s chair, Mayor Mary Clare Higgins, let the public speak.
In the past, the public has been welcome to sit and watch during CAC deliberations. During the CAC’s June 18 meeting this year—the meeting a month after Kollmorgen Electro Optical was unanimously voted onto the site—Higgins broke precedent and opened the floor to questions. The meeting had been better attended than most, but with the vote already cast, opponents could do little more than let off steam. At last week’s meeting, however, the public was invited to speak before the vote on a plan to add up to 100 extra housing units to the nearly 200 already approved for Hospital Hill.
The epic three-hour meeting drew a big crowd, noticeably improving the quality as well as the quantity of discourse. Though the CAC had already spent hours discussing the topic twice before, the public raised many new questions—for example, why were 100 houses being requested when the plan only showed 63 new homes packed into the available land?
So now they are here. The houses that we saw in all the many plans MassDevelopment has circulated over the years at CAC meetings. Ok, 51 Olander Drive up on Hospital Hill has views, but not much else for its selling price of $637,855. It’s a modest 3 bedroom 2 ½ bath house on a truly tiny lot. click here for description Wright Builders sold it the other day to the realtor Pat Goggins, but its selling price may not reflect its real market value. All the parties involved in the sale are partners in this development. Goggins as realtor, Wright as builder and Florence Savings Bank as holder of the $2.8 million first mortgage on the development. Goggins got a $500,000 mortgage from Florence Savings Bank, Wright gave him a second mortgage of $137,000, which means that the only cash that Goggins had to lay out at the closing was $855.00. The best guess is that the sale is aimed at giving Wright some cash to help him stay current on the mortgage, because the homes are not moving.
From The Rebulican
By Fred Contrada
Friday, November 21, 2008
The City Council approved a tax break Thursday for the pioneering company at the Village Hill Northampton campus.
VCA, Inc./Alloy, LLC., a high-end woodworking company that recently became the first commercial tenant in the vast mixed use project located on the former Northampton State Hospital property, has told the city it hopes to expand at the location and create new jobs, with qualified local workers getting preference.
The Tax Increment Financing Plan, known as a “TIF,” encourages business expansion and job creation by giving tax small breaks on new growth to local companies.
Earlier this month, VCA opened its $2 million, 20,000-square-foot facility on Earle Street. The woodworking company specializes in high-end furniture and architectural millwork.
Here is a complete Google video of the November 17 meeting of the Northampton State Hospital Citizen Advisory Committee. The video is 3 hours long, and was recorded by Lachlan Ziegler. The meeting took place in Florence in the John F. Kennedy Middle School Community Room.
Roughly the first hour of the meeting presented the revised Master Plan, addressing residential units, open space, trip generation, commercial tax revenue, and other subjects. An extensive public discussion followed.
Ahead of the CAC’s next meeting scheduled for November 17th a draft revised Master Plan as well as an Illustrative Site Plan has been posted to the CAC section of the City of Northampton’s website. In addition to fielding public comment, the committee will vote on the following reformulated motion that originally failed to pass at the last meeting:
To approve the revised Village Hill Northampton Master Plan and Illustrative Site Plan in its entirety including the layout of roadways, the conceptual site plan and uses, and a maximum of 100 additional residential units above the currently approved 227 residential units (207 units plus 20 units/10% increase allowed by right under the original Master Plan). Approval is granted with the understanding that the Illustrative Site Plan is a conceptual plan with variable options for lot layout within the approved roadway layout.
The committee charged with overseeing the Hospital Hill development shows signs of life.
Last Wednesday, October 22, the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) met for the third time this year to discuss plans for the northernmost part of the development where the historic Northampton State Hospital once stood. Before them was a proposal for an additional hundred housing units, which, to be built, required their approval.
After years of passively accepting much of what the developers presented, regardless of how far the revised plans deviated from stated goals, this time the CAC didn’t let the double-speak go down so smoothly.
MassDevelopment, the state agency managing the development, had been busy this summer overseeing construction of the 207 units already approved for the site. In order to make the development eligible for state funding incentives that promote green building practices, last year the agency had proposed that instead of construction taking over the entire hilltop, as originally planned, they would build the approved homes closer together. At the time, there had been some concern that the actual agenda behind the compact construction was to make space available for more units later, but the city and the CAC had been assured this was not the case.
In spite of contractual and moral obligation, there may be no memorial to the mentally ill on the prime land that was their legacy from the state.
Part of the Citizens Advisory Committee’s stated mission in redeveloping Hospital Hill has been to provide a memorial commemorating the Northampton State Hospital and its 150-year history on the site. To this end a subcommittee was formed, and in May, 2007, it issued a report recommending that the hospital’s original fountain be refurbished and returned to where it once stood outside the hospital. Members hoped the memorial would be set in a secluded space that would allow quiet contemplation.
Last Monday, Oct. 20, the subcommittee reconvened for the first time since its report to decide on the seven location options developers had offered them for the memorial.
Despite the subcommittee’s recommendation, a private home is already under construction on the fountain’s original site, and the only option MassDevelopment offered that resembled what had been requested was in a narrow pathway between two other houses. Another option was right on Route 66, a location the subcommittee had already said was not appropriate. Four more possibilities were at major intersections, near playgrounds or too close to houses.
The subcommittee ultimately chose a site for the memorial on the opposite edge of the campus.
