Belchertown Select Board Split Kills Housing Letter, Backs Hybrid Tadgell Plan

BELCHERTOWN — March 16, 2026 — Belchertown Select Board deadlocks 2-2 on housing letter as Tadgell building costs draw concern. The board voted Monday on a full agenda that included a failed 2-2 vote on a letter of support for the Carriage Grove mixed-income housing project, with Vice Chair Jennifer D. Turner and Chair Lesa Lessard Pearson in favor and Members Jonathan Ritter and Nicole A. Miner opposed; the Economic Development Industrial Corporation had already submitted its own support letter to the state six weeks prior. Architects Lindsay Schnarr of Kuhn Riddle and Craig French of Tighe and Bond presented a feasibility study for the town-owned Tadgell School showing total project costs of roughly $26 to $26.5 million, including $18.7 million in construction costs; the board directed the firms to develop a hybrid commercial-and-civic-center option at the 60 percent design stage, taking residential conversion off the table. The board voted unanimously to transfer health insurance savings from school and town budgets back into the stabilization fund, to cap free-cash transfers to the operating budget at 50 percent, and to adopt MGL Chapter 32B, Sections 21-23, authorizing an Insurance Advisory Committee to negotiate health insurance plan design changes — moves that reduced the school department's projected FY27 budget deficit to roughly $49,000 ahead of a tri-board budget presentation scheduled for March 23.