Allendale Pines community. Wednesday, July 27, 2022. (Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle)

Allendale Pines community. Wednesday, July 27, 2022. (Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle)

PITTSFIELD — Teton Management is considering a major expansion of the Allendale Pines mobile home community. The property manager is seeking approvals from several city boards and commissions to create a northern branch of the park by adding 21 homes in a $1.5 million expansion.

The new branch, which would be called Allendale Pines North, would need to be built essentially from scratch.

Representatives from Teton Management have told the Mobile Home Park Rent Control Board that to add the lots, they’ll have to clear a wooded part of the property, grade it, add utilities, pave a new road and add a separate northern entrance from Cheshire Road.

Once that’s done, Teton Management would install 21 new double-wide trailers. The new homes would be between 1,100 and 1,200 square feet in size and sell for under $150,000.

The rental rate on the lots would be $520 a month — about $200 more than the existing lot rate — and would cover the land rental and water and sewer costs.

Teton Management said the expansion would come at no additional cost to existing residents of Allendale Pines and would be entirely offset by the new rental price.

“The demand for attainable housing — in my opinion but it’s shared by many — has never been higher than it is today,” George Whaling, Teton Management’s president and CEO, said in an interview Thursday.

“If we can help alleviate some of that local demand and increase the value of what we’re doing, we’re very interested in doing that,” Whaling said.

To make the project a reality, Teton Management hopes to come before the Zoning Board of Appeals and Conservation Commission in the next month to get a special permit for the expansion and an OK on the park’s water management plans.

Whaling said the company’s already put $25,000 into tapping water and sewer lines along Cheshire Road to support the expansion and a “considerable amount of money” in engineering and attorney’s fees.

He said he hopes to get the required approvals by the end of the summer with a potential construction start in the spring.

Meg Britton-Mehlisch can be reached at mbritton@berkshireeagle.com or 413-496-6149.

Meg Britton-Mehlisch is the Pittsfield reporter for The Berkshire Eagle. Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, she previously worked at the Prior Lake American and its sister publications under the Southwest News Media umbrella in Savage, Minnesota.

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