Letter: We Do Not Need More Student Dorms Downtown
Architects rendering for new construction proposed for 11 East Pleasant Street (south view). Photo: amherstma.gov
Editor’s note: The following letter was sent to members of the Town Council on March 12.
No sooner had I written to you to express my feelings about how downtown Amherst has deteriorated while I have lived here, when in comes a new proposal from Archipelago for a massive new student dorm downtown. Our business district should be primarily for business. Dorms should go where dorms belong–near campus. A bedroom community might be nice for sleeping in, but that is all. Please oppose this inappropriate and off-scale use of downtown property.
Tobias Baskin
Tobias Baskin is a Professor of Biology at UMass Amherst. He blogs about science at https://blogs.umass.edu/baskin/
Of all the locations these buildings might be placed, how is it that anyone think it appropriate to locate them in our town center. There is nothing I know of, in the Master Plan or any Public Forum to support this choice. Hard to comprehend that we did it, and continue to do it.