WHATELY — Residents and business owners located in Interstate 91’s Exit 35 neighborhood met this week to share ideas and thoughts about potential development opportunities in the area.

As Berkshire Design Group prepares its own recommendations — through a partnership facilitated by a $59,000 Community Planning grant — the firm met with residents and town officials to collect their input as an economic development study of the area continues in its early stages.

“We have been hired by the town of Whately to look at this area and strategize ways to energize this area and turn it into an economic driver,” said Berkshire Design Group Landscape Designer Gwen Fern. “We want to hear from everyone else before we start to flesh out our own ideas.”

The town is examining the area that begins around the Deerfield-Whately town line near the intersection of Routes 5, 10 and 116, and continues south to the Christmas tree farm. From west to east, the study area begins at the Whately Diner and ends at Long Plain Road.

Initial ideas proposed at the first Exit 35 study meeting include a visitors center, affordable housing for people working in town and bike path connections.

In this area, the vast majority of parcels fall into the Agricultural/Residential 1 and 2 zones, with smaller areas designated as Commercial and Commercial/Industrial zones. Fern said there may be some possible uses in the A/R 1 and 2 zones, but it “makes more sense to focus our efforts on the commercially zoned parcels.”

To work around zoning challenges, Fern said there may be opportunities to tweak zoning requirements or create overlay districts to encourage more development. If pursued, zoning changes must be approved at Town Meeting.

“We are welcoming zoning changes as part of the idea process here,” Fern said.

Pat McLaughlin of Nouria Energy, which owns the Whately Diner, said zoning and overlay districts may be a way to encourage economic development and could help the diner further develop, too.

“We’d like to expand and improve the existing offerings we currently have, with new facilities and all the great amenities,” McLaughlin said. “We recognize the value of the diner and we look forward to being a part of the process, so, thank you.”

Another challenge is the large amount of wetlands in the area, which make development, especially around the diner, impossible. Planning Board member Judy Markland, however, noted these parcels are owned by the state and are designated for recreation, but are currently “virtually inaccessible.”

“One way to attract people is trying to find out how to create parking,” Markland said of these areas.

An area where residents don’t want to see a ton of development is on Old State Road heading toward Tri-Town Beach, which culminates in a dead end by the beach.

Inviting more ideas, Fern asked residents to imagine things that are “uniquely Whately.” Suggestions to build off of include the town’s strong agricultural character and town mainstays like the Whately Inn and Watermelon Wednesdays concerts.

The idea of hosting a farmers market somewhere in the neighborhood was floated around, although Markland and others present, including Selectboard member Julie Waggoner, noted many of the town’s larger farms already have their own stands.

Town Administrator Brian Domina said one direction officials could take is to set up Whately as a sort of “gateway” to south Franklin County, as people exit Interstate 91 at Exit 35 to travel to Deerfield, Sunderland or Amherst.

As the town and Berkshire Design Group process these ideas, another study meeting will be held in the future to discuss the feedback and next steps. Domina said he expects the initial overview phase of the study will be completed “in the next couple months.”

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