Helping Cranberry Manor II and Beaverdam Creek this Spring Town Meeting

Residents will be voting on two projects that would use Community Preservation funds during Spring Town Meeting on April 27. 

The first project is a $300,000 request to show support and help with the construction of the Cranberry Manor II apartment building. This would be located at 2220 Cranberry Highway behind the current Cranberry Manor and have 40 one-bedroom units. 

This is a not-for-profit project, and all 40 units would be affordable housing to support seniors. 

“The problem the town people have had previously is giving CPA money to a for-profit,” said Select Board Chair Judith Whiteside during the Tuesday, March 17 meeting, “But this is a not-for-profit organization and it is all 40 all senior units, so excellent.”

The project totals $45 million, so the Community Preservation Committee is asking for the money as a recognition that the town supports the project.

The other project would look to conserve Beaverdam Creek. $700,000 would go toward the Community Preservation Committee’s effort to purchase bogs and turn them into natural waterways.

The money would be used to purchase the bogs for the Buzzard’s Bay Coalition. They would not be decommissioned immediately, but the Buzzard’s Bay Coalition would figure out the timeline on shutting down the bogs.

This would also help lower the amount of nitrogen polluting Wareham rivers, which Scott Kraihanzel, the director of the sewer department, said needs to decrease by 79%. 

“I can appreciate that area getting restored as that’s my old stomping ground,” said Select Board member Joseph Still.

Sandra Slavin, a representative for the Community Preservation Committee, said that while the area would probably not turn into forests, it could return to its natural state with bushes and small trees. 

Referring to the decommissioned Freedom Cranberry bog as an example, Slavin said, “It naturally returned to what was originally here, since it was no longer being maintained.”