HATFIELD - Selectmen will ask voters at a special Town Meeting Tuesday to approve an amendment to the budget that would qualify the town for a $15 million MassWorks infrastructure grant to install new water and sewer mains along Route 5.

In conjunction, voters will be asked to approve taking $70,000 out of the water and sewer enterprise fund to provide engineering and land surveys to support the project.

"It's two warrant articles tied to one underlying project we hope to get the town to approve," said Town Administrator Jeffrey Ritter. "It will show the state we're shovel ready four months from when we get the award."

The meeting is set for 7 p.m. at Smith Academy.

Ritter said property along the route, from the Northampton line to Whately, would be rezoned as commercial and that the grant must be used for business development.

Michael Cahill, chair of the Hatfield Redevelopment Authority, said developing that stretch will help bolster the town's tax base.

He also said the water project has been in the works for years.

The plan includes replacing an aging water main from the town's water treatment plant, enhancing of the intersecting north-south West Street water main and the extension of the West Street sewer line north to the area of a proposed business park.

"This is an effort to obtain funding for two badly needed infrastructure projects that will benefit both residents and businesses," said Cahill.

"Neither of these projects is primarily focused on commercial development, but once completed, each could facilitate it."

"The water project is critical," said Cahill. "If the old main were to suffer a major break, the majority of town could be without water. The sewer extension will finally bring town sewer to the remainder of West Street residents and businesses who currently are on septic. It will also make sewer available to three major blocks of real estate on West Street that are zoned for commercial development."

Cahill also said the project would help protect a major underground aquifer that parallels West Street.

"You could call us lucky or foresighted," said Ritter, "but when this is fully built out, this corridor will house 5,400 new jobs in Hatfield over 10 or 15 years."