Page 16 - BusinessWest June 10, 2024

“We have a pretty robust rooms and meals tax here in town that keeps us very well- situated so that we can maintain a consistently conservative tax rate.”
MARYBETH MITTS
the Cultural Council and was, until recently, chair of the Affordable Housing Trust, and is currently running for state representative as an independent.
She said the town’s business community is top-heavy with tour- ism and wellness institutions, including anchors such as Canyon Ranch; the Miraval Berkshires Resort & Spa (formerly Cranwell Resort); the Mount (Edith Wharton’s home); Tanglewood, the sum- mer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the Mass Audubon Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary; Shakespeare & Company; and many others.
“We have a pretty robust rooms and meals tax here in town that keeps us very well-situated so that we can maintain a consistently conservative tax rate,” Mitts noted. “We’re able to stick to the Propo- sition 21⁄2 restrictions, and we’ve never had to go for an override; we’re not anywhere near our tax limit.”
This strong fiscal balance sheet will be a real asset as the town faces some needed infrastructure projects, she said, starting with a new, $25 million public-safety facility she described as “hugely necessary.”
“That’s because our Police Department is located in the base- ment of our town hall, and our fire trucks constantly have to be modified to fit our inadequate and tiny fire station,” she said, adding that a new facility that will bring both departments together will be built at the corner of Housatonic Street and Route 7, a somewhat central location outside the village center.
Also planned is a new wastewater-treatment plant, she said, add- ing that this project, with a projected $40 million price tag, is due to commence over the next 12 to 18 months.
Another huge issue for the community is housing, Mitts said, adding that there was already a shortage before the Airbnb crush made things considerably worse.
Indeed, she said many modestly priced smaller homes and also several multi-family homes have been converted into Airbnbs.
“Some of the two- and four-unit homes that had either smaller families in them or people who want to stay in town but don’t have large families anymore have been converted to Airbnbs,” she said. “I know specifically of the case of a fourplex that was purchased;
there were two small families and two individuals who were living in apartments in this fourplex, and they were essentially evicted so that this person could rehab it and turn it four Airbnbs and charge $3,000 a month for those units.
“One of those individuals was someone who worked in the
arts in town and was able to affordably live in town and maintain their livelihood,” she went on. “But now, the need to pay an addi- tional amount of rent and try to find an affordable rental unit ... it’s become difficult to impossible, and other people who were essen- tially evicted and had children in the school district were now look- ing for places to live so their children could stay in the school dis- trict, and I believe one of them wound up living with their mother in another town because they couldn’t find a place to live.”
There are many similar stories, Mitts said, adding that the planned new housing developments — that 65-unit project, to be called Brushwood Farms, and the 68-unit complex currently work- ing its way through the funding and approval processes — may enable more young families to come to Lenox and more empty nest- ers to stay.
“If that project gets approved, we’ll be adding 133 units to our affordable rental housing stock,” she said, adding that eight of the Brushwood Farms units will be for families, with three bedrooms, in addition to 28 two-bedroom units and the rest with one bedroom.
Bar None
Tracing her long history at the Olde Heritage Tavern, Becky Pic- colo said she has managed it for several different owners.
That includes John McNinch, who acquired it in 2000 and later sold it to FTX digital bitcoin magnate Ryan Salame, who would eventually enter guilty pleas on two criminal counts — making an estimated $24 million in unlawful political contributions and con- spiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
As fallout from those charges, the U.S. Marshals Service took possession of the 12
Housatonic St. prop- erty, as well as some other properties Salame
Lenox
Continued on page 41
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