Save Southworth Street

To lose another local wooded area, likely including the historic sycamore, the Tea House building, parking lot that used to be the trolley turn-around as well as several residences would devastate this residential community street. I strongly oppose any major construction on the NW corner of Southworth & Main Streets.

Preserve the neighborhood and school safety areas!

How to preserve and improve one of our few downtown neighborhoods: I would like to see Southworth end by the elementary school and Southworth/Church St no longer be a cut through for pick up trucks and large business vehicles. Make most of the first block from Southworth of Lyde Lane for pedestrians only. Have residential streets off of Cole Ave be one-way out onto Cole. Make street narrowing crop-outs to slow traffic through the extended school zone region. Promise that any Southworth construction disallows the use of back up beeping by construction vehicles altogether or what can be heard more than 500 feet from the vehicle itself. Plan not to further degrade the wildlife and light/sound border between Southworth and the church/library parking lot uphill by cutting down any more trees or adding more paved surfaces. Disallow additional parking lots. And ensure that new buildings do not use heating/venting/cooling systems that emit continuous low drone noise pollution such as are emitted by the elementary school and the new library. Then, I could possibly support a new complex at that Southworth site.

Unrestricted expansion of the college needs to be discouraged. It is important that the character of the town be preserved.

Utilize space in a non-residential area

Williams Inn or Town Garage are better sites!

It is easy to cynically dismiss this petition as NIMBYism. It isn't. It is the result of residents striving to become partners in their future. The Town-Gown relationship involves two populations, with many members belonging to both groups. We also have a third population, visitors. Visitors add to the energy of the town and are a crucial component of economic development. Southworth Street is half a block in the wrong direction. WCMA visitors often eat on Spring Street and it would be a mistake to relocate WMCA further away, even by a half-block. In a report entitled: Revitalizing Williamstown’s Superblock: Lessons from New Urbanism, an exert from a section subtitled Smart Growth and New Urbanism reads: "New Urbanism—is the concept of creating dense, mixed-use developments that bring together all of one’s daily needs into one walkable area such that transportation is minimized and community interaction and pedestrian access are maximized (CNU 1996). Urban infill is the technique used to achieve these goals in areas of existing development that is not sufficiently dense. New Urbanism itself has stated social goals related to improving a town’s sense of community, social equity, and the notion of common good (Talen 2002). Social improvements are accomplished when careful attention is paid during the planning process to the connection between the physical aspects of the site and the community that will be a part of it such that the physical space will foster a close-knit community (Talen 2002). Too often, planning does not even consider the people that will be using the space and how the physical aspects of an area will affect them." The full study on how to make Spring St. and Water St a Superblock is here: http://web.williams.edu/wp-etc/ces/Wmstn-superblock.pdf I propose a Planning Board meeting at WES where ample space and time can be allocated for town residents and college administrators/residents. When town laws need to be changed to accommodate the

Raised on Main street I strongly object to the college's intrusion.

I am a Williamstown resident of 22 years, and also a retired Museum strategic planning professional, having worked not only with and for WCMA, the Clark Art Institute and as adjunct at Williams, but also as an employee of the Conservation Center. I have consulted with many other museums throughout New England and New York State, many of which are located on college campuses. I am also a lifelong advocate of historic preservation and community/urban planning. I concur with many thoughts and comments made by others. Namely, I agree that updates to WCMA are needed, this has long been known, to enhance both preservation of, and access to this valuable collection. However, the collection's primary audience and the reason it was formed was to enrich the undergraduate education of Williams College students, while only incidentally providing access to its encyclopedic collection to local residents and tourists. It's current incarnation now includes providing a training ground for our nation's future museum leaders who are students of the excellent graduate program in Art History. So the point can be made that this collection really belongs at the heart of the campus, not along it's edges. I can state that one of WCMA's challenges is indeed remaining highly relevant to it's primary audience, namely the students. I taught a class for Williams' Winter Study for several years, entitled Exploring Regional Museums. I can tell you that a vast majority of upper level students, at that time, had never set foot inside WCMA. They had intended to, but hoped to make it by their last semester, they always said. I think some of this has changed with new programming and staffing, but it remains a concern. I will not belabor points made by others about the current proposals for the location of this "new WCMA," but I do think that a second major campus plan, integrated with a thoughtful town plan is needed. In my view, thinking as an advocate of environmentally--sound town pla

As a frequent visitor to Williamstown I have often admired the character of this part of town. I am sure a better location can be found. There seems to be lots of room elsewhere for a new building. No need to destroy the character of this area.

Improving and highlighting the access to/ spaces within the museum and art history dept is incredibly important. So is this intersection between Southworth and Rt2, a prime location welcoming visitors to the center of town AND the beginning of campus. Southworth already feels more campus-like and less neighborhood-y with many rentals, homes turned into offices, and the beacon-like lights until 2 am from the gorgeous library. We need to carefully consider the value of viewing/ strolling down this historic street with its "classic New England" homes and old trees- with Hoxsey Street a shadow of what it was, there are very few streets left in town with this feel. This process is an opportunity to really define what we want the delineation between college and local residential spaces to be.

195 Pine Cobble Road

57 Maple Street

The 'Village' was lost some time ago folks. The pace of transformation by the College and other institutions has quickened and will continue for as long as there is a concentration of wealth and a lack of other alternatives to or for development. I am not saying that the loss of the 'Village' is good or bad, just fact, and I look forward to seeing this evolve. The questions we should be asking now surround the issue of who we really are and where are we going as a community. I am saddened by the loss of our village, I grew up here and spent most of my time on Spring Street as a kid, as kids would do then... it was fun. I even have an uncle that was born on the street long ago, another aunt that lived and worked on the street with her family, my mother (one in a line of the owners of the Williamstown Newsroom) and manager of the theatre then called the College Cinema. For my sanity, I am going to succumb to a studied conversation and welcome this petition as it may open necessary channels of understanding and appreciation. If this expansion has good healthy socioeconomic benefits - then my ears are more open because we cannot stagnate as a community on any level, whether it be staying 'Old New England' or not. Our surrounding areas are not thriving, it will impact us and so our community needs to be vibrant on many levels to stave off that fate. If you were to ask my opinion of what I think right now, I'd say leave it alone - find another place because esthetically it's quaint and peaceful and it abuts a beautiful neighborhood and the social costs will be great. It won't be as bad as B&G on Meacham Street - as that's a real horror, but its impact on this neighborhood could be huge and devastating. It could be a wound in the fabric of our community. But still, show me alternative solutions. I imagine it's only time before the Savings Bank goes. As a member of the Community Preservation Committee, I had a loud voice for deed restrictions on the Will

I would prefer that we not lose those houses as a nice transition to the residential area of town adjacent to the college. Additionally, those are beautiful old homes that are part of the architectural history of Williamstown.

This is the street I grew up on. Please don't proceed!

I add my name to this petition to express my anger over the possible relocation of the Williams College Museum of Art to the corner of Southworth and Main. I've had enough of Williams' poorly designed renovations and "new building creep." (The "updated" Hopkins Hall interiors still infuriate me, especially when I think of all the gorgeous period lighting, marble floors, wood wall coverings and banisters that were destroyed in the renovation in favor of the "bowling alley" interior we currently endure, complete with industrial lighting and rubber flooring.) I get that I have no say on Williams' on-campus building projects or on the taste of those who give their thumbs up to designers and architects. But, Williamstown is my home. For this reason, I ardently hope that the College will stay OUT of our residential areas in town, and, that if the powers-that-be are determined to build a new museum, they settle on a site inside the campus for the new construction.

I must respond to the idea that several people have raised to site the museum at the town garage. I think this is a terrible idea. Go to any college campus and you will see campus museums sited on main thoroughfares, at high points on campus, or (in larger towns) near commercial hubs. That's because the museum has a special presence on campus-- it "speaks" for the college, as do libraries and admission buildings, and it welcomes in the community. Moving our museum, one that embodies a prestigious legacy in the arts, from the center of campus on route 2 to a depressed site in the corner of campus next to no other academic buildings and adjacent to the power plant, would send a very odd and negative message to students, faculty, and the community. Would you consider locating the admissions building there? The library? I didn't think so.

my goodness! another project planned. there are already too many.

22 Lab campus drive