001Okay. So, our first order of business is a roll call of the members. Councelor Golib here. Councelor Gordon here. Councelor Monstero here. Councelor Bottomley here. Councelor Bulock is not here yet but is on their way. Councelor Perry here. Councelor Healey here. Councelor Brown here. Vice President Garrett here. Councelor Minhos here. Councelor Torono here. President Wandowski here. And you have a quorum. Fantastic. Welcome everybody. Um we have public comment going on. So if you want to comment tonight, there's a sign-in sheet over here. Um, many of you I've seen before, so you know the ropes, but if you don't know the ropes, turn to your neighbor and they can help you out with it. So, we want to make sure everybody gets heard for sure. Um, so our first order of business is to suspend the
002rules. So, could I have somebody read the rules of procedure on page three, please? I can do that. Thank you. Uh, the city council moved that it be ordered that the Greenfield City Council wave the rules of procedure. Section 565-8, ordering disposition of business to allow the agenda items to be taken out of order. Do I have a second? Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Abstensions. All right. So, we've suspended the rules, which sounds crazy, but I think I think we can handle it. So, thank you all for coming. We all know that tonight in front of us are a number of zoning amendments. So that's why we're here. If you're here for the budget, you got two weeks. So we'll come back for that. So um we're going to move
003into public comment. Uh we're going to take from the list as well as from folks who are here remotely. Uh and when you come up to the table, if you push the button and just wait for it to turn green from red, then we can all hear you. You'll have three minutes and you have to state your name and where you live um for the record. It's just the rules that we have. So, the first person I have on the list is Pamela Goodwin. Good evening, councilors. My name is Pamela Goodwin. I live at 54 High Street. I'm I'm in a HUDfunded building, which I am grateful for after I sold my house. Um, I already gave a spiel recently to the planning board, so I'm just going to revise it a little bit. And
004you should have all gotten a copy that I had previously sent in as well. Um, I have been unhoused in the past, so I know what it's like to sleep in my car. I know what it's like to be driven off of where I was sleeping in my car at an elderly age. But I chose homelessness because of extreme abuse by property managers and neighbors. I was tired of restraining orders. So that's kind of where my heart has come. But I have also been a member of Housing Greenfield ever since I relocated back to my hometown which is now the city of Greenfield. Um I think it's a goal for everybody in this community to attract businesses. In order to attract businesses, we have to have a place for housing for those employees. And I
005think that's a catch 22 thing where we don't have the business but then we can't figure out where anybody would leave and how long how far of a commute would they have to have to work here should the business arrive. Um I also know of people who sleep on couches and they sleep on different people's couches. Um I have experience volunteering at the warming center. I'm grateful that we can do that and keep people warm and charging their phone in the winter months. I will say now that I just was at an ad hoc committee. Um the mayor put me on that along with some other wonderful people and they're living in swamps. Their tents are drenched flushing down into the rivers. They can't get to their campsites. everything they own and everything they're wearing,
006their personal belongings are sping wet. So, that's one of the things that we are very concerned about. It's not just the temperature outside, it's where they are trying to stay alive in their tents. I urge everyone when it comes up on community TV, please take the time um to look at that ad hoc meeting. It's it's up there. Thank you, Councelor Whid Perry, for showing up today and and listening to what was going on. We welcome um lots of good ideas. I will also say that people are always talking about their tax rate and not in my backyard and I don't want a high-rise that's going to destroy my view and things like that. I I get it and I understand that, but I think we have to decide, is this city of Greenfield going
007to be a little bit progressive or do we just need status quo? And I have close friends that are talking to me about it. We have a difference of opinion. We respect that we think differently about things. And I'm would think and hope that that's what we could also do. and I'll wrap it up there because there's lots of other good comments. Thank you so much for working on this. Thank you so much. Next, I have Susan Warft. Since I had trouble hearing Pamela, I'm going to pull this a little closer. Okay. Um, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. My name is Susan Warft. I live at 45 Forest Avenue here in Greenfield and I speak for myself and for the 92 other members of Housing Greenfield. Thank you for your efforts
008on these zoning issues. I know it's been a slog. I will be brief. There are no new arguments here on ADUs. Presently, homeowners can subdivide their existing one family home into up to three apartments by right. These are not ADUs. The provision has proved to be a sound policy over time and shouldn't be changed. We should maintain our present divi definition of an ADU as a structure in addition to the primary dwelling. This too has worked for many years. There's no reason to change it. The federal section 8 and Massachusetts residential voucher program are presently both administered by the Greenfield Housing Authority. They provide support at the level of 30% of an applicant's income for low-income renters in all kinds of buildings. There's no need for a special directive from the city about ADU residents.
009The Affordable Homes Act requires that there be a special permit process for more than one ADU on a lot. If there is a lot that is large, let's say an acre or more that already has one ADU and the owners want to build a second, they need to go through that process. Use the special permit process that already exists for that purpose. We have zoning laws that have worked well and continue to do so regarding setbacks and other sighting matters there. These are still in place whether that be for aid use or any other development they work. Um, in terms of other zoning issues, councelor Master Tataro's amendment to 200-14B18, uh, regarding multif family developments within the central commercial district being mixed residential or and business use in the area between Corin Street and Franklin
010on ma on Maine um on Maine, Bank Row and up to um Pleasant on Federal. We understand that this is an effort to maintain commercial property on Main Street and the parts of the side streets immediately adjacent to it. We would however hope that the option for a special permit would be allowed as part of the change. We support the changes in 200-48 subsections A and B as written in the proposals made by the counselor but wonder if there might be a way to allow for more flexibility in its application. The requirement in subsection B of limiting limiting upper floors to offices may be too restrictive. For instance, having a rooftop restaurant or another kind of non-intrusive business in an upper floor would be procluded if the upper floors are limited to office use only.
011And we support the councelor's amendment to to the table of dimensional requirements because it provides more development flexibility in the central commercial district and the general commercial district without significantly altering the character of those two areas of the city of Greenfield. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I have Edie Heinman. Edie Heinaman, 41 Garfield Street, Greenfield. Good evening, counselors, and thank you for this opportunity to address you directly. I'm here to ask your support in maintaining the proposed zoning rules for ADUs as previously proposed. I understand that there's been a petition to further restrict some of these rules and even though I'm very in favor of limiting the ability of outside developers coming in building overbuilding for their own profit with no regard to the city character. I do not think the amendments brought
012up by these petitions will solve that problem. We need housing for a variety of income levels. So, I ask you to please use your good sense and go with less restriction, keeping your eye on the goal, making it as easy as possible for homeowners to shape their property in ways that can allow for additional apartments, ADUs, if that is what they are want to do and not close the door on this important need. We need more housing and it can be done without sacrificing the character of this great town city that we have. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sean Thomas. Thank you, Council. Sean Thomas, 100 Maple Street. I'll just take a minute. There's a slight misconception online at least about what this is all about. Many of our fellow citizens believe this is
013simply about a mother-in-law suite in the backyard. And that's not the case at all. As you all know, I just want to get something across to the public about what this is. This is about corporate America determining what the status quo of Greenfield is going to be someday in the future instead of the people of Greenfield. And it needs to be relayed out to the public that message because many are misconceived and they think, well, this is just about an apartment in our backyard someday. It's not that. It's about 80 foot tall buildings blocking the view in the skyline. I just wanted to get that point across because it's so important and it does affect your vote. Thank you. Thank you, Peg Hall. Hi, Peg Hall, precinct 6. I've already submitted written testimony. I'm not
014going to repeat everything. Um, I think the planning department is well aware of uh the difference between zoning and building codes, and I suspect that most people on the council are as well, but I too think there are some misapprehensions uh among the public. the um the first ADU that is now by right will still have to comply with all building codes and the second ADU should it be allowed also has to to comply with all building codes and most of them wouldn't be able to you won't be able to fit two on most most properties and if you do have a property suitable for it you have to get a special permit and that will check to make sure you are following all those codes um I'm in favor of the additional height uh
015I think that will allow uh developers to fit more units on a downtown um footprint without using up more open space. And I think I will just leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you. Uh I'm having trouble reading the name. It looks like Mary and James and Chestnut Hill. Margo. Margot. Thank you. Sorry, Margo. Messy handwriting. Sorry about that. Thank you, uh, city council for allowing me to speak. I'm Margot Jones, 28 Chestnut Hill, as you heard. Um, and I'm speaking about the height extension that's on the table to be voted on. Um, I'm an architect and I'm also a chair of the historical commission, but I'm not speaking officially as them. I just want to talk about this height extension. Um, the beauty and strength of Greenfield comes a lot from its historic
016downtown and most of it is designated the Main Street historic district which in is within the central commercial district that you're considering the height extension for. And the highest building in that in our historic district is 55 ft tall. It's five stories. It's Wilson's and to allow 80 ft seems a little bit beyond what will suit the historic character. I have to say this is only my opinion but um you know six stories would be fine, seven stories maybe, but 80 ft would allow eight stories and that's that's pretty uh a pretty big change. Um, Ammerst has a 55 foot limit. Northampton has a 70 foot height restriction downtown and Northampton's much bigger than we are. I don't know. I I just wonder why we need to really uh go that high. Um, and I
017also want to say that uh the if it were restricted to a story number that would be much more palatable like five stories would be fine. You know, we know there has to be more density. We're totally in favor of housing downtown. We think it's perfect to have mixed use. Um, I shouldn't say we, I um, but it just seems like this could invite, you know, more Congress street housing out where, you know, there are parking lots now and I'm a little worried about it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, I have Donna. Good evening. I'm here today to voice my opposition to the proposed changes. I just need your name and your address. Sorry. I'm sorry. That's all right. I'm Donna Festinger from Precinct 6. I'll start over. Um, I'm standing up today
018to voice my opposition to the proposed changes in the ADU policies, especially the multiple ADUs. I ask myself, why is this being proposed? Who benefits? Obviously, not the neighbors or abutters who will see an increase in traffic and noise. Not the neighborhood children and pets who lose their yards to play in. Not the homeowners who will see a reduction in their property values and not the neighbors who will lose open space or the environment which will lose green spaces. As you make a decision on your vote, I urge you to remember that you were elected to represent all of the residents of Greenfield, not the property developers, many of whom are not even from Greenfield. I support only one ADU per lot. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Uh David Lewis, please.
019I'm David Lewis. I live at 54 High Street in Greenfield. Um, I live at the Weldon. That's a high-rise building, so-called. It's five stories high. I have to look out my window down the street, down High Street to Main Street to Congress Street, where there's a ninestory building. Don't know how that got there. I guess there was no zoning law. But anyway, I am in favor of one ADU per house lot. We don't need to cram people in. I drive around town, I'm seeing a lot of empty houses. I'm seeing houses that are being sold, fixed up, and they're empty. I see other houses that are empty that are falling down. I also know that the Greenfield High School last June had under 80 graduates. When I moved to Greenfield in 1973, there was a
020couple hundred kids that graduated. I'm beginning to wonder why do we need housing? Who's going to live in it? I'm against developers coming in from outside. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Joan Marie Jackson. Good evening, city council. Uh Joan Marie Jackson to Chestnut Hill in Greenfield. Uh first of all, I'd like to um see a show of hands of those supporting the citizens petition amendment saying yes oneonone. One ADU on one lot. Anybody in the audience raise your hand? Great. City council, do you see? Thanks. Over the past several months, I have had the opportunity to engage many Greenfield constituents in a meaningful conversation on the misleading facts and geob bribes surrounding the untruthful benefits of allowing multiple ADUs, accessory dwelling units, or we call them absentee dwelling units. The facts are as follows. One,
021existing tenants in Greenfield will most likely be displaced due to lack of competitive employment wages and employment opportunities. Two, ADUs will not be affordable. Three, ADUs will not create generational wealth for tenants, but will afford an absentee developer or landlord a luxury lifestyle. Four, we presently have ADUs in Greenfield exceeding 900 square ft. Thereby, what is the definition and regulations for ADU? I hereby recommend the Greenfield City Council to please listen to your constituents and vote yes in regards to the citizen petition on ADU amendment 1. ADU on one lot. I support the citizen petition amendment regulating ADU. One ADU on one lot. Allows 5,200 homeowners in Greenfield to build an ADU with no special permit required. That's generous and more than enough. Thank you. Uh, excuse me. RD Kim. Thank you, council. I'm Marty
022Kim. I live at 126 Oakland Street in Greenfield. Um, this is from a letter I wrote uh to be sent. I I sent it to the recorder uh twice. It was not put in. And this is basically what it says. I was surprised to hear during the public comment at the March 19th Greenfield City Council meeting that any developer who buys a single family home in Greenfield can turn it into a two or three family home by right and then add an accessory dwelling also without a special permit. How did how did we get to four dwelling units on one lot without so much as a single special permit? I think this is getting out of control. People who have lived in a home for a number of years don't really want to see the
023lot next door occupied by four families instead of one. That's a a major change. That's all I have. Thank you, Robert Kalin. Hi, I'm uh Robert Catelyn, 31 West Street. Uh thank you. Um pardon me if my comments are uh not in very well organized fashion, but um one thing I wanted to say was that California, which is a leader in many u uh statewide policies in 97% of their municipalities limit ADUs to one per lot. in Santa Cruz, which is a model for the nation, they um also require the owner occupy that lot. Um I think that's a really uh good it's a good compromise for us uh in in our situation and uh it will keep um out of town uh investors and speculators from snatching up properties uh renting them out at
024uh market rates which are very high right now. not affordable for a lot of our lower income people. Um I'm also concerned that there uh the current regs are 900 square ft could have seven people living in it. That's that would be an exorbitant change. Uh if that's true uh and it would increase traffic and and and have many impacts in the neighborhood. I'm particularly concerned wi with our kind of uh central housing district which is basically north of Main Street uh all the way up to Silver Street which has a historic character and I could really see things changing a lot uh if uh people were suddenly adding a lot of ADUs there. It would change the density. It would change the the character of our as has been mentioned the historic nature of
025our town. Um it's it's not a solution for affordable housing. Um the um let's see family members uh are the only ADU owners who who will allow other family members to live in an ADU without a high rent. The state has said that we have the local option to limit no more than 1 ADU per lot and Conway and Chesberry are limiting to 1 ADU per lot. The economic uh development committee said at its March meeting, concern was raised that developers view ADUs as a lucrative incentive to make large quantities of money in the smallest amount of space and there should be a limit of uh number of ADUs that could be built on a lot. Um um the the uh in my particular instance, I I live just a few blocks from here. If
026uh I imagine if there was an ADU added uh that would um it could very likely reduce the resale value of my home because uh I'm you know 30 feet away from the house next door. Um, and having another unit in there with who knows how many cars coming and going would really change character. So, thank you for listening. I assume that's my bill. It is. Thank you so much. Annie has Thank you. [Music] Annie Hasset, 21 Leonard Street, Greenfield, Mass. I love looking out at the city council and see how caring and engaged you are about this issue. I've lived here a lot of years. I've invested a lot in this community. I bought a home right around the corner 20 years ago when a lowincome person like me could actually take every penny
027that they made and get a home. I wouldn't be able to do that now. I'd be on the street with with the rest of the people. So my question is I'm listening to an absentee landlord can do all this building and changing and uh a bunch of ADUs and I've always felt like green green field mass was people over profits. I really believe in that. I stand in the line Saturdays with 600 other people a lot of times getting food. they are not going to be able to afford these. And if they sell them 250,000, I was lucky to get my home that I got to begin with. So, uh, I don't have the answers necessarily, but I don't agree with this. Maybe one ADU, if I get a little bit older, maybe I'll have
028a somebody will have a place for me. But I hope, uh, you listen to this with an open heart. And as my May my Angelo would say, you know what to do. just just do the right thing for our community, you know, for that you love. I see that you do. So, I appreciate you being here. I appreciate your focus and I appreciate your caring. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mitchell Spade. Mitchell Spade to Chestnut Hill. Uh, good evening, city council members. Uh, I guess I I'm here to voice the same sentiments that you've heard regarding one ADU per lot. Uh, I've spoken with many people in Greenfield and most of them were tenants and they finally realized that they'll be the victims of the surge of ADUs coming into Greenfield. They will not
029be able to be be able to participate in the rental markets due to the fact that they would not have adequate income or economic or employment opportunities to pay those large amounts. It's only going to uh benefit absentee developers or landlords. And as it was said before, they will live a luxury lifestyle on the peanuts that they give us. And most of the time, you won't even see them. Long as that check shows up at the P.O. box, that's fine with them. Thank you. I have Erica. Erica Ryugi, 12 Barbara Avenue. I want to make a quick um comment to Margot's comment. Um I'm also an architect. I I agree with Margot on the height the the downtown, but I want to propose a little twist alternative. A lot of cities what they do is
030they preserve that height um of the existing um historic downtown fabric but then they do a formbbased code and have a setback for one or two extra stories and that I think is a good compromise. It gives you an extra story or two. That setback allows you to have outdoor space at that rooftop level and you're preserving the integrity of that front. So just does that, right? So I just wanted to add that as something for you to consider. Um, but I'm I'm here basically to talk about the ADUs. I've been I'm new to Greenfield. well knew seven years, but I've been focusing on the urban residential zone. And I drive around and I see lots and lots of abandoned garages, which would be perfect for rehabilitation as an ADU unit for a senior who
031wants a ground floor unit or a student at GCC. All these garages in this urban residential area are within access to public transportation, so you don't need to have a car to live there. and their amenities within walking distance. So, I think that's an untapped resource that we have regardless of what the configuration of that existing house is. Some of them have already three apartments, but it doesn't matter. There's an abandoned garage that's a fire hazard. That's a place for rodents, and it's it should be addressed. And one way to do that would be to turn it into an an ADU. The other thing I wanted to point out was that we talked about there was an amendment there was a proposal for vouchers. I don't think vouchers are the solution. I think if you
032look at the heat loan program that Massachusetts has very successful about 85% 87% um acceptance of that and only 0.75% default on those zero interest loans. if we as a community came up with something creative like that, worked with our lenders and and maybe even the state and came up with a program that provides some low interest funding for homeowners who want to convert their garage into an ADU so their kids could move in or when they're older they could live there and rent their house for income as retirement. I think that's some creative thinking out of the box that we should look into rather than pursuing more vouchers that we know are a dead end and do not increase the amount of housing that we need. If if Greenfield had more housing, our population
033would grow. Our downtown would thrive. But right now, my daughter just moved up here from DC for a job at GCC. She has not been able to find housing. She's moving to Shootsbury and she wanted to be in Greenfield to be able to walk to work or ride a bike to work and she can't find something. So, we have a problem here. Anyway, thank you. Thank you so much, Denim. What? Hello everybody. Uh, I am also on the ADU train. My name is Denim Lunt and I live on Sunrise A in Greenfield, Mass. Um, thanks for your ears already. Uh, as just as a backup, I I like to say that uh I'm I think this was said earlier too that I've been told that there are 5,200 525 residential lots in Greenfield. Uh, just
034as a backdrop, if you will, that would be allowed to build one ADU with no special permit. I support the citizen amendments regulating ADUs. One ADU on one lot allows thousands of homeowners in Greenfield to build an ADU with no special permit required. I think we all know that, but just a little background. By the way, the state says that we do have the local option to limit no more than one ADU per lot. Uh more is problematic. Uh, the state building code allows as many as seven people to live in a 900 square f foot ADU. If you are a neighbor, your property will be impacted by one or more of those houses to the point your home's resale value could be affected. An issue I'm fairly keen about, if you will, if you
035have ADUs adjacent or abing your property, a two family home is valued less than a one family home in Greenfield, I'm told. Whether you have a one or a two or a three family house, you should not be able to add more than one ADU per lot. One ADU's company, more is a crowd. Counselors, what's missing here, I think, is that while ADUs could solve some clearly needed uh housing issues and aid developers as well, I should say aid developers as well. Uh they can also adversely affect adjacent homes and even full neighborhoods. It's more than possible that ADU benefits, including multiples on single lots, can create painful losses of privacy, uh shrinking home equities, noise pollution, and pride of ownership by Greenfield's many, many longstanding home owners. I ask you, what about them? One
036ADU, one lot is a good call. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Jamie Barttok. Hello. I'm also a little scattered, too, so I'll try to get it all in. Jamie Bartek, 61 James Street. I am running to request that you not cap the number of ADUs allowed on a parcel. First, we already have provisions in place to control ADUs not going onto lots where they won't fit, and anything beyond the first ADU requires a special permit. There is no evidence of out of town developers um that they're buying properties to develop ADUs in Greenfield or that it even makes any economic sense to do so with our rents where they are and that this is a solution in search of a problem. We need more housing units, so we shouldn't be throwing up unnecessary barriers
037to building housing. ADUs are a small piece of the housing puzzle due to their expense, but they are important. But there's something else that's bothering me about a lot of the arguments against ADUs, and it's not just in Greenfield. I see it all over the state. Controlling the types of housing units in a community in effect controls the types of people that can live there. If you only allow tall houses with lots of stairs, seniors can't live there. If only one-bedroom apartments, families can't live there. and only 3,000 square foot houses, people of different e uh certain economic means can't live there. And what I hear in the arguments to limit ADUs often is an unspoken implication um against allowing renters. And I think it's important to remember that a community's housing stock is not
038just about serving different types of people, but also different life stages. For example, I live in a very vertical home on James Street and I lug groceries up that thing every week and I will not be doing that in 20 years. God help me. I love James Street and I want to stay there in that neighborhood. So, if there were more ADUs I could rent in my old age, that would be ideal. But to go back, recently I read in the paper that the mayor of a suburb of Springfield said that the new ADU state law is quote an absolute unadulterated nightmare. think about the implications of that considering where that is being said. And it reminded me of something else that I read in a book called The Color of Law, which is a
039very famous book about the history of zoning in the United States. And in that, the author writes that a perhaps primary motivation of zoning rules that kept apartment buildings or you could translate that to multifamilies out of single family neighborhoods was a social class elitism. So, I just want to remind everyone to consider that as we're considering this rule, and we all know that Greenfield is better than that. Thank you, Jessa McCormack. Hi everyone, my name is Jess McCormack and I'm at 20 Frederick Road. I'm speaking just for myself. I'm against the citizens petitions and for increasing the height limit downtown. And there's a dangerous misunderstanding woven into this discussion that has to do with predatory landlordism. I want to be clear that corporate land landlords don't care about ADUs. Bad landlords are a real
040thing. And I know you all don't know me, but my career has been spent fighting against bad landlords. I've worked with tenants and lawyers to win anti-gentrification policies that keep people housed. Large corporations care about one thing, profit. We all know this. Their preferred tactic is to buy large tracks of housing and rent it out for more than it's worth. It's the lowest input for the highest output. ADUs are the opposite. A high input for a low output. And remember, we're only talking about a handful of places in town. Ironically, if the town takes an anti-development stance, you create the conditions for predatory landlords to come in later. You make a market even tighter than this one. And with property values even more inflated and even fewer real people who can actually afford it, reasonable
041rags like the ADU ordinance without the citizens petitions release pressure on the market before it gets to the point where only large landlords with cash offers can buy. I know it's really hard to hold this when so many people here cannot afford it right now. But our market can get worse if we don't release the pressure. If people actually want to protect Greenfield from predatory landlords, here are some real solutions. Repeal state laws that restrict rent control and then implement a full suite of tenant protections, including a 3% cap on rent increases and a tenant anti-harassment ordinance. An established land trust to take housing off the speculative market, removing unreasonable profit from the equation altogether. We need to fight for housing as a human right. Thank you. Thank you, Chris Eier. Hi, Chris Eier, 26
042Sunrise. A uh thank you all for serving on the boards. Um I'm here to talk about it all. I'm going to start with the height. Um 80 ft's too tall. Um it's going to look odd. Um 40 no 50 years ago I had a house on Congress Street when they built the new ninestory building. Um it was kind of a nightmare especially for the fire department. Um I don't know if our new ladders I haven't checked it uh can even get up to it now let alone back then. Um that said uh the character of Greenfield has been here for a long time. Um, I was born here, so obviously I've been here a long time. The ultimate is that taking setbacks and stuff is certainly a good move. Uh, hitting 80 ft probably isn't.
043Think a little shorter, please. Um, that's enough about height. Uh, ADUs, I think they're a great idea. I think they uh can help families. I think they can help uh the people in town. I think they can help our housing crisis which has surely been uh I mean state level, county level, town level, all of it. It's there. We know it's there. Um I am totally in favor of one-on-one. I don't see where um if you start jamming uh onto certain properties uh with ADU rights um it's a good thing. I think there's other laws sitting there that have already um enacted and work and have worked that when you get to the two and three and four uh units. Um we we have those laws. Let them be the laws. Uh the one by
044right ADU, great idea. I'm in favor. Thank you. Have a good night and thank you again. All right. And last we have Alice Timonss. Hi. I hate doing this. Um, my name is Alice Timmons. I live at 106 Haywood Street and I'm for the petition of one ADU per lot. I am for ADU development, but I think doing this before passing zoning changes, etc. before the actual language is codified into law is just absolutely horrifically stupid. Um, my comments are all going to stem from a document that I got I found on the mass.gov site entitled um model zoning for ADUs version one March 11th 2025 on the from the mass.gov gov site written by housing advocates. Okay. From this document, just the introduc introduction, the state is changing the definition of an ADU to
045a protected ADU can be adjacent, internal or external as well. Prohibiting owner occupancy requirements. And third, and that protected ADUs are not subject to locally defined ADU zoning rules. Period. They also go into specifying things like setbacks, etc. It is this is way premature for discussing actual functional development developers coming in and building ADUs until these issues are cleared up. Anyone voting on [ __ ] should read this document. I'm going to read again model zoning for ADUs version one March 11th on the mass.gov site. They are changing the rules and doing this before the language is actually determined and codified is it's not going to help build ADUs. They also suggest and I'm just talking about things in the introduction to the piece. They also suggest that we do establish specific local laws regarding ADUs that
046are specific. for example, one unit per lot. They encourage that. The rest of this stuff about, you know, this is going to, you know, is crazy until the language is clearly understood. Any lawyer talking about it, until they have the actual language, it's not true. I I just, you know, it's crazy that we're pushing ahead on something that that the mass.gov gov site is saying your current zoning on ADUs, your current definition will not be applied to these protected ADUs. That's what their site says. So I I think other than trying to kind of hold back a little bit and and protecting it so that we can make informed decisions when it's clear, I'm not against ADU development. I'm not against multi-ADU development, but it this this document is kind of scary and this is
047from the mass.gov site and this is suggestions for zoning people to understand what they will and will not allow. Um, and if you haven't read it, I don't think you should be voting on zoning. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, I just want to thank everybody for coming out and I'm I'm sorry you're not on the list, sir. You've always asked, is there anybody else who wants to speak? Sure. Okay, come on up. I think you got some online, don't you? No, we don't actually. So, uh, council members Al Norman, Grenell Street, um, it's taken us a decade to create decades actually to create what some people are calling the housing crisis. Um, it will take us at least a decade to add enough inventory to even begin to get out of the hole
048that we're in. But Franklin County has a less than 2 and a.5% growth rate goal in terms of new housing need according to the state. You all saw that in the the report that I published yesterday in the paper. That's one quarter of what Boston is up against in terms of percentage. So uh the county uh is on the low end of the growth rate need uh in in Massachusetts. ADUs will not be a major factor in creating affordable housing. You all know that. And most people who build ADUs are white people and affluent. Uh according to the studies that have been done, particularly in California, the only real affordable ADUs are those that are owned by family members because they do not charge their family members anything or little to live there. That is
049affordable housing. And that's what we're trying to protect and expand. Not, you know, corporate landlords. Our goal has to put been to put family members and absentee landlords on a level playing field so that it's families versus profits. The state has created the dog whistle that is attracting absentee landlords to carve housing up into multiple apartments where the rents will be as high as the market will bear. We're not talking about garages under our plan. You can do anything you want with your garage. It's a protected ADU. That's not the issue. is what happens after that on small lots in other places. Um, citizen amendment number one clarifies that once your first protected ADU has been built on a lot, no additional ADUs can be permitted. Did we invent that? No, the state did. It's
050in their regulations. And we got a lot of grief for suggesting that that we came up with that. It's it's done. But the state put that in their regulations. And now you're telling me that what we put is not consistent with state law. doesn't make any sense. So, the option to deny multiple ADUs was written by the state, not invented by us. The average homeowner in Greenfield will not be able to afford an ADU without taking out a second mortgage. The only only real estate in spec speculators would want to have more than one ADU. Now, I've sat through 30 years of special permit hearings in Greenfield, and I will tell you that they're always approved. Always approved. If neighbors want to be heard, they have to hire an attorney and go to court to
051appeal the court to the court to be heard. So, I don't want to talk about how special permits protect anybody. If I if if I build a 900 foot apartment in my house, is it an ADU or is it a duplex? It's up to me to to declare that. If I build a,200 foot apartment, it's not an ADU. There's a difference here. 900 inside my house is an ADU. The city councilors uh um have moved the goalpost at the last minute and said the closer that we got to the vote, the more votes we needed to require what we uh can pass today. I don't have time, but I want us to I've said in the paper yesterday, I support councelor Master Tataro's amendment uh on 50% of the first floor square space being for
052uh retail because in the center of our downtown, that's where the retail should be. He came up with a great compromise. Thank you. Thank you. I think we have one more person who wasn't on the list. Thank you, Pam Kelly, 32 Spruce Street. So, what I have to say is really different from what other people have said. So, I live in a small Cape. It's 1,250 square ft. It's on 3/4 of an acre and it has completely solar 24 solar collectors on the back. Now, we had articles in the paper saying we have to be thinking ahead. Listen, we have to move all the housing as much as we possibly can into fossil fuelfree housing. And I don't hear anything said about building buildings that are going to cut the solar access of buildings. We
053have to be thinking ahead and it should be written into this stuff now. And uh you know if you're not familiar with this kind of stuff, you have one of the best people in the entire state in the form of Carol Collins who is the sustainability officer of this town. and everybody should be getting a briefing. It's solar sighting you should be paying attention to as well as ADUs and numbers. It's solar sighting and it's um building buildings that create shade and and interfere with other people's ability to use solar sighting. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Okay, I think ne now thank you all for for coming. We've got everybody. Appreciate it. Um so the our first order of business is uh motions. Um and I I also just want to comment
054uh so in the packet we have the legal opinion. Um, so we had gotten an opinion from our city planner that um because it is because some of the the citizens petitions are more restrictive than the current code, they require a higher threshold. Um, so we then went to our council to make sure that that was the case and they also advised us that we needed a higher threshold. So, it's a twothirds when you're being more restrictive on your zoning. Um, and it's majority when it is just relaxing housing. So, I I just want to make sure that that's clear. We just got the ruling. Um, when was it, Kathy? Monday. Monday. Monday. So, we're we're not trying to do something last minute. We want to be really transparent and make sure that we're following
055the rules so that we're doing this correctly and doesn't come back at us. Definitely Monday. Definitely Monday. Okay. That's that's and I believe Kathy because she knows everything. So our first motion um is the zoning ordinance. I'm going to turn that over to councelor Healey. Sure. Order number FY25-048. The city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amends the zoning ordinance chapter 200 zoning section 14 central commercial district CC subsection B uses permitted paragraph number 18 by adding the language in bold to read as follows. 200-14 Central Commercial District CC amends section 2000-14 Central Commercial District CC of the zoning ordinance to require that all multifamily developments within the central commercial district be mixed residential business uses such so that it is reads as follows B uses permitted multif family
056dwellings in accordance with 200-40 subsection B number one comma 4-9 all multif family developments within the central commercial district shall be mixed residential/ business uses and further amends that the table contents and index of the code and further that non-substantiative changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield. This is a two3 two3 vote required which would be nine votes. Um second. Thank you. Uh I'm just going to go into the rationale of the the EDC. Um, so we kind of talked about this one, but we we all kind of agreed in the EDC to amend this a little bit, some language in here. So when we get to that point, I'm going to let one
057of the counselors make the amendment, but we talked about changing some of the language to say um all multif family developments along Main Street, Bankrow, and Federal Street within the CC district to be mixed residential business uses. And that was a 4 zero no positive um recommendation. So discussion and comments and again this one is 2/3 because it is more restrictive. Uh, councelor Master Toro, what gave me the incentive to uh propose this was um what uh the the uh Rural Development Inc. project on 170 Main Street. We're losing four storefronts for apartment house. Um, one of those businesses is actually going to leave town. Now, I don't agree with Mitchell on a lot of things, but he and I grew up in the same neighborhood. And when I discovered this, I immediately thought about
058where we grew up, which has now become urban blight because there are no stores left. It's all apartments. There are food deserts and um I left that to come here many many years ago. I moved to Greenfield in 1979 and we can have all the housing we want but I firmly believe we still need brick and mortar businesses particularly on in the center of town on Main Street. So that's that's what incentivized me to make this amendment. Councelor Toronto and then councelor Garrett. Um, while I understand councelor Master Tatero's uh thoughts on this, I think this is a very shortsighted vision of what the reality is right now. We would all love for Sears and J C Penney and all of the things that y'all grew up with, I grew up with being here. It's
059not the reality anymore. We can, sorry to use it, we can [ __ ] in one hand and wish in the other and which one's going to fill up first, right? We say that. That's a that's an expression. It's for a good reason. It doesn't all we have downtown is vacant storefronts. The ones that are already there are vacant storefronts. They're not filling up. You can't wish away if you're not going to if if you're not going to, not you, but if if if anybody in town is not going to build a storefront, have a b a small business in a brick-and-mortar store cuz they can't compete with what is now the market nowadays. We can wish it away all day. All we're going to have is vacant storefronts that just have signs on it that say
060for lease or for sale all day long. So putting a restriction like this is ridiculous when we have a a use for the space to do it. And I'm going to have to absolve myself uh abstain from a vote that has to do with the RDI development if we ever have to actually take that up while I'm still here, which I don't think we will. But the the the the the storefront area of that is not actually even going to be residential. It's going to be essentially the community room and entry and foyer for a fourstory housing, multi- different housing in there with with with multiple different it has it has accessibility. It has um one, two, three like family housing like inside of it, which what else are we going to do with it?
061And and the and the business that I think you're referencing that's going to move out of town was already going to close anyway. So there's no business there that's actually getting detrimentally affected by this change because they were all told about this two three years ago and they all have exit plans anyway. So I think some of the narrative has been spun that is just not true and and I don't know we have plenty of empty storefronts on Main Street right now. Nobody's filling those up, so why have more? I just want to thank Councelor Master Taro uh for introducing this amendment because I do have sympathy for the desired reserve commercial spaces. I my thinking is not identical to councelor Toronto's, but I do have similar concerns about one particular piece of language here,
062which is the phrase shall be mixed residential business uses. One of the things that's valuable about a zoning code is giving people options. And if we do not give people options to do something other than this, I am convinced that effectively there will be nothing built. So if there was a market for mixeduse buildings, then the um a good example in the central commercial district, and I just want to actually reference the table of uses here um for that district, the old wineer rack package store was torn down to build a parking lot. It's gone. I counted the other day there are seven trucks sitting on that old commercial space and that is a permitted use in the central commercial district. If we change this to say that all multifamily housing has to be mixed
063use. You've effectively said a parking lot is more permitted. You can tear down a downtown building and build a parking lot and that's totally a okay, but you could not build a multif family building. So that's why I cannot vote for it in the form that it sits. Um, with the permission of the chair, I have a proposal and I'm sorry to steal the thunder of the EDC as far as the streets, but um, if I could pass at this hand and I have it written down if that would be acceptable. Basically, to keep effectively the uh, Main Street, most of it except instead of Cole Rain Street, it would be Conway Street largely because of the developmental patterns that are west of Conway Street. Um, I don't want to proceed unless I know I,
064you know, I can not pass this out if that's You may pass it out. Great. Um, then I'm going to go to councelor Healey. Um, in case you are you making an amendment? I will make an amendment, but I also um would rather I want to have folks have a chance to see it then I can read it out. Would it make sense for me to do so now? Uh, Can you do this? Does he have to make an amendment first? So there is no current other than the main motion. There is no amendment on the table. I also don't want to cut off other people discussing this before I make a amendment. I just wanted to pass this out so people could look at it so we know what we're talking about. I would
065prefer if if other folks have the com um comments on the main motion that's on the table, let's continue that conversation and then when councelor Garrett if and when has a other amendment then we can entertain that at that time. Councelor Healey. Yes. So um one I I don't agree with the sentiment of the abandoned storefronts. Yes, there are some abandoned storefronts, but if you take the time and you meet with the GBA director and you actually walk downtown, there are a lot of thriving small businesses there. There's Ice Cream Alley, which right now it's raining, but yesterday when it was nice, there was probably 40 people outside of Ice Cream Alley. You have a lot of thrift stores, places people shop. You know, the We have one central commercial district in this whole city,
066and it's really not that large. that the to to not protect it would be a shame. You know, we're we're trying what we need to focus on is how to change that mentality of our main street sucks. Nobody wants to come here. Our businesses suck and say, "Hey, how can we help these businesses thrive?" Like, um, for instance, some of the things that are coming up in the EDC meetings that might help that, right? So, we need to focus on what we could do to make Greenfield Central Commercial District a more a better place where people want to shop and and will shop and will be entertained. And housing is a big part of that. So, with that being said, that's why I love this amendment. It gives the capability to have those storefronts on
067the first floor, yet it allows housing on the the upper levels, which is going to engage people to move in, to come down, to walk, to shop at a local international food store or whatever it may be. Um, I I like the way it's written. I'm open to suggestions as long as I think they're favorable um and fair because um we worked really hard on this. This has been going on for months, right? Um I I just I don't want to walk like walk away from it because we think it's too hard of a problem to solve and show our businesses in Greenfield we don't care because that's a bad message to send. Thank you, Councelor Menhus. So, I just like to say it's we're talking about housing. We're talking about how we want people
068to come here and live here and have accessible housing and affordable housing. My question along with that is great, you have people living there. That's that's amazing. You have somebody with a roof over their head. Don't we want them to have more places to work to actually sustain themselves and have an honorable way of life and be able to take care of themselves? I think what this does, initially I didn't understand this if I'm being honest. I was like, h why are we doing this? But sitting and talking down with councelor Mosaru, I think what this does is merge the two needs. the need for housing and the need to preserve our commercial district. Just because we're not in the best shape commercially that we are doesn't mean we should just tear down the whole
069thing. If you have no business, if you have a dwindling amount of business, that's not a good thing. You don't feed into that. You don't encourage that and say, "Yeah, well [ __ ] it's already going down the [ __ ] Might as well just kick it a few feet further." No, you improve it. And I think one of the ways you can do it is by merging the two needs for housing and economic sustainability. Councelor Bonley. Um, one of the things I like in watching the EDC and planning board meetings where that they did come up with a compromise to shrink that commercial so that we would have that protection. And it seemed like that met with widespread support from both planning and EDC. And I know that wasn't easy. That took several months for that to happen.
070And I I just from what I hear from talking to people, they would like to make sure we somehow can try to preserve some balance of business on that small stretch. We've got the whole city. we need housing, but just to have some protection for to to save businesses, especially if we have these big housing projects coming in. I think there'll be an incre increased need and maybe desire for businesses to locate in that stretch. So, I'm in support of the main motion. Council me. Yeah. First, I want to say is that that 50/50 thing is not a 50/50 split. It's it's specific. Yeah, but he brought it up. So, but in any event, well, I'll keep it I'll keep it on this proposed amendment. Um, you cannot dine at Amazon. Um, I don't buy
071the whole, well, you know, nobody shops at brick and mortar buildings anymore. And we have empty storefronts. And in fact, we do have a few. There are fewer. Um, but we have an economic development department and we have the Greenfield Business Association, which I know are presently working on getting those storefronts filled. Uh I I uh we're going to be within the next couple of years is going to be somewhere between 100 and 200 apartments in the center of town or there or right off the center of town. People who live in an urban divi environment. This is not an or a a rural environment we're we're creating here. It's an urban environment and people who live in an urban environment walk and they have no place to go if there's no place to shop.
072So, uh to to suggest that oh the storefronts are empty, let's just fill them up with apartments is uh it that's that's the wrong course to take. So, people are going to vote the way they want to vote. But uh I think uh I think we need to preserve what little of Main Street that this affects. Thank you. Yeah. Is there anyone who didn't get the chance to speak the first time around? So I'm going to go to councelor Gordon first. Thanks. I've said all throughout this process that I absolutely agree that we need to protect commercial space. Um and so I really appreciate the the goal of this amendment. I would I'm with all of you. I would love to see as much thriving, filled, successful commercial space downtown as as we can possibly
073get. I do share Councelor Garrett's concern about the lack of flexibility. Um, which I think actually risks working against what we want to accomplish here. Um, I don't want us to require commercial space that might just sit empty. I do have a lot of concerns about that and I don't want us to scare away developers who might actually build more multif family housing but don't want to be commercial landlords. Um or you know there may just be buildings where it the configuration of it doesn't quite make sense. Um so it does seem to me that there is a way to split the difference. Um, I like the idea of as we u voted for in EDC to narrow the, you know, the part of downtown, um, that this is available to. Um, but if we're
074just making a rigid rule, I I do worry that we're shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit. Um, so that's that's my concern. Councelor Pollock. Um, yeah, I I share very similar concerns. Uh, I kind of wish that I felt like we were being overrun with developers and um, housing options. There's like a couple of assumptions that have come up multiple times tonight, like that we have big housing developments coming to town. That's not true. We have small housing developments coming to town. um the number of units that are projected to be increased over the next 5 years don't even meet the threshold for the um the point in time count for homelessness in our city. And I want to say this happens a lot on council floor because I think we live in
075a society that we people like data. They like numbers. You want to let you sound smart when you say them. Um, but data tells a story. And so sometimes when you just say a number, it can be really misleading. And so I've heard a lot about this like 2% growth over time in Greenfield is what we need. And that, you know, Boston has such a higher grow like they need 10%, right? But that's only 10% of Boston for their for their growth. When you put those numbers in context, that's 1% of their population that's needing housing. Here it's 8.5%. Our 2% growth is 8.5%. So you have to put num like the data tells a story and without that story, you can throw numbers around. We can all throw numbers around a bunch of times
076and they can mean different things. Um, so but what I'm saying to say is that we have an actual very real problem with housing in Greenfield. If someone tries to tell you otherwise, I will tell you to go walk the bike path. Go to Green River right now and look under the platform where people are living right now. I helped people move this week their tents from one place to another because they were going to be flooded out. And so anyone who tries to tell you that housing isn't an issue is you're out of touch. I'm sorry. Um and so the small housing developments that could be possible in our town, I think we have to make space for. And I agree with everything councelor Healey said. Um, and I also would definitely entertain an
077amendment to this to make it more flexible so that housing um there's more flexibility with that word shall and that that if there is an opportunity for more development to come in and maintain our downtown district uh for commercial space. I think that's the ideal right now. We need we need help with this. Um and people aren't banging down the doors. And if anyone has the actual name of a corporate landlord that functions in our city, I would love to hear it because I I've looked and I've talked to all of the developers who've bought houses on my street over the last years that aren't selling quickly because they're priced too high even for other landlords to buy. Okay, councelor Garrett. And again, if anybody else has something to say who hasn't spoken. Oh, councelor
078Perry, just something in general as we go through all this stuff. No one knows what the future holds. We have no idea what the future's going to be. And so when we discuss all this stuff, just be careful about predicting the future and knowing the future and uh thinking we have the answers to the future because we don't know what's going to happen. But we certainly can learn from the past and what has happened in this city in the past and some of the mistakes have been made. And so just let's be careful about not making the same mistakes again and trying to find some common ground. uh people have made some good faith efforts to try to make some compromises and finding some middle ground and so I hear a lot of eitherors and
079let's find some okay in the middle somewhere on some of this stuff and I want to thank the EDC for working so hard on some of this stuff. Thank you. And I'm also hearing that there's a lot of common ground here that, you know, folks here really do want to preserve our commercial space and make sure that we've got housing and flexibilities. And so I really appreciate everybody coming together and just all the hard work that's happened. So I think I think we're really close. Uh councelor Golib and then I'm going to go to councelor Garrett. just want I I want to echo that that I think that there is a lot of common ground here and this is actually the hardest of all of the motions for me to vote on tonight because I
080have my constituents in mind and I've heard from many people knocking on doors how much the thriving downtown matters in precinct one um and a real longing and a nostalgia Like I don't I kind of echo a lot of what councelor Toronto said and I want to like add some a little bit of softness to to that like there is a longing and a nostalgia for the J C Penney and and you know Wilson's being open and a desire you know I heard socks and towels and underwear and all of you to be able to buy retail in Greenfield like a longing for the days when you can do that and there is you know back in the day of Walmart I probably would have been opposed honestly, but there is a rage in precinct
081one about the fact that that was never built and that that that opportunity wasn't given to people. Um and and so I'm this is this is probably one of the hardest ones for me because I do we don't know what's going to happen and the first my my biggest concern with this is vacant storefronts and um and wanting flexibility and options that will match the future that is emerging and really wanting a thriving downtown town that could look like many things. So, um I'm and really like really hearing the like the longing for the neighborhood in in New York, too. Like that makes sense to me. Um so, I'm I'm interested in hearing the amendment and that's where I'm at in this moment. I know we're all waiting with anticipation. What's it going to be,
082Councelor Garrett? So, I um I appreciate all the common ground um focus because I think it's vital to this sort of thing. And out of again respect for the work that EDC has put into this, out of the fact that this got a planning board endorsement. And also in addition, I share the concern about losing a commercially vibrant downtown. That's the last thing in the world I want to see. And so the way I wrote the amendment that I just passed out to folks, the intention or the amendment to the amendment, proposed amendment to an amendment, um is to make the default in the areas that you folks were describing in EDC to be multifamily mixed use. However, the biggest change that I would like to see is a special permit process in that would
083allow you to not have to build it as a mixeduse building. I also just as a longer term sort of discussion, the RDI building that's being built on uh Main Street, that space downtown is going to have people coming and going and feet on the street is absolutely important to actually creating a sense that there is a vibrant downtown. You're not going to walk down a street to go to a store if it looks like there's tumble weeds blowing across it because we live in Massachusetts. So that's a way to increase commercial activity. All that being and so one thing we should consider in the future not today is what do we mean by commerce you know what do we mean by commercial spaces and there are options that are vibrant that are not necessarily
084a business but that's neither here nor there um so the language that I wrote if I guess I will just move to amend at this point going to say is there a motion yeah I would like to make a motion to amend um and should I read I guess I'll just read section E. Well, I'll read the whole thing. So, uh, section 214, Central Commercial District, amends section 214 or 20-14, Central Commercial District, the zoning ordinance to require that all multif family developments with the central commercial district be mixed residential commercial uses along Main Street, from Conway Street to Franklin Street, along all of Bank Row, and along federal from Maine to Pleasant Street, unless a special permit is issued so that it reads as follows. B, uses permitted. uh section 18 multif family dwelling
085in accordance with 200-40 subsections B 1 4 through9 all multif family developments along Main Street from Conway Street to Franklin Street all of Bank Row and along Federal from Maine to Pleasant Street within the central commercial district shall be mixed residential commercial uses a special permit may be issued to allow an exception to this requirement Second. Yeah. Any discussion. What I don't like about this is special permit. So there there's if you could prove as a developer that you meet all the criteria in the special permit, you could do it. So you're doing it by right essentially like there's nothing in here that's going to stop them from going for a special permit. and the town would never have the the power to shoot them down. I think you get what you want in um
086the 050 amendment which allows you to keep 50% on the first floor um for for for you know residential use. You're getting that in any old development and new development you could apply that to. So we're just asking on our side to maintain 50% of that front front facing for businesses and storefronts. um in 20 years if it if if I'm if it's not you could change this in 20 years. It's not like it's written in stone forever. We could change this again. But for now, I think the right move is to go back to councelor Masteros. So, I won't vote in favor of this and vote in favor of the 50/50 later on and see how that works because I think special permits are not going to prohibit a developer from being able to
087take every storefront off Main Street. I have consular Toronto and then I actually have a totally different angle on this one. Um I don't really want to see this go all the way to Pleas Pleasant Street. I don't think it needs to go that far north. Um I think we could It's It's hard because not a lot of streets go all the way through. A lot Well, Pleasant Street doesn't even go all the way through. So that's a kind of m point on when you're when you're crossing over. What's the point? It doesn't include Pleasant Street. No, it says up to Pleasant Street. Right. Right. But Pleasant Street doesn't go all the way to Conway Street either. So is there a a a line in the sand that goes through people's houses? Like that's what
088I'm saying. I don't want that north if if I will. My problem with this is I don't think that the north extension of this Can I can I let councelor Master Turo just explain the overlay? Yeah. Yeah. Real quick. Thanks. But originally we talked uh big a larger area in the central commercial district and the the planning board recommended and we agreed that uh that the area of the central commercial district will be from main street from Corin Street. Mhm. Up to Franklin Street and then north. West to east. Yep. Court Square. And Federal Street up to Pleasant Street because after Pleasant Street, it's it's now the general commercial district. So that's where a central commercial district ends, right? And that's where the central commercial district ends on the west side. And that's where the
089central commercial district ends on the east side right about Franklin Street. So that that one block that one block is just basically, you know, already storefronts and apartments on on Federal Street, right? So my my explanation of this is Pleasant Street's right here, right in front of us, but it stops right there at at Chapman Street. What? Oh, sorry. Well, Pleasant Street stops at Chapman Street. That should be the limits of Okay, because west of that we have Arch Street. We go over. So like putting have that's what I guess that's not included in this uh our our we just got to stop the back and forth please. I'm just trying to understand where the where the parameters are of this zone is if can I ask councelor to explain the the original and then
090councelor Garrett if you can explain the amendment. Thank you. So actually what the planning board recommended here was Main Street, Bank Row and Federal Street in its entirety in the central commercial district because if you look at the boundaries of the CC district, it ends at f uh the CC district ends at Pleasant Street on Federal Street and at Main Street, it ends in those limits that councelor Master Tero had mentioned and bankro in its entirety. That's it's so RCC district defines those areas very well. What you're gaining by doing it that way is you don't get you're not restricting Chapman Street. You're not restricting um any of those side streets in the CC district where housing makes up like let's build all the housing we want there. It makes sense there, right? But on
091that main street in Bank Row where all our businesses are like let's have housing on the second floor and up or half the first floor. That that's basically what we're getting at here. Thank you. Councelor Garrett, did you have a then if you want to just explain Yep. what your streets are. So my intention with the streets I listed out here was to match what you folks discussed in EDC and the planning board with the exception of instead of Cole Rain Street, it being Conway Street. So that's the only difference in what I wrote here because the stuff west of Conway Street is car dealerships, parking lots, etc. Especially the big parking lot next to Mohawk Mall. That's one that really like when I was looking at the map that's included in that packet, I
092really don't think that would be bad if it was housing. Um, and so I'm looking at the language I wrote and I I know councelor Healey that you said that I didn't write it correctly. I don't see the error, but if you can point it out to me, I'd be happy to accept a friendly amendment to fix it regardless of how I was right. Okay. Um, but in any case, you know, it's even regardless of if you would vote for it or not. But again, my intention is to preserve the spirit of those meetings while not having been in part of them and having separate concerns. Councelor Torono, did do you have any additional comments or are you all set? Nope. No, I'm good. I just I I I'd heard some some scuttlebutt around uh
093things that were around this area. Uh uh Allah School Street, Davis Street kind of coming this way up to Pleasant Street. And so if those are not on the table with what is being presented, then that's great. Those were the those were kind of the areas that north of Maine up to Pleasant. Um I understand if it's it's if it's just along federal that's makes sense makes a lot more sense on the commercial part. I know that. But like I said, I I'd heard some talk about some of these interlying areas between here and there. Um, and I was hoping that those would be left out of them, and it seems like they are um on this. So, cool. And councelor Minhus, I'm just wondering how a special permit would not detract from the spirit
094of this cuz what I see a special permit would just be like a formality. It doesn't seem like something that would actually ensure that you have both that merger between business and residential. I think it would take It doesn't it it just basically would allow them to go ahead with it. How would they be in violation of anything? Why would they be struck down if they applied and they just wanted to be strictly residential? Councelor Garrett, I think that's a very fair question. Um but if you look inside the packet I hand you, the third page is the requirements for a special permit. The one that I looked at that I thought made this appropriate is um number eight. So, there's section five, I'm sorry, section five, section F, criteria for approval, and there's a
095whole slew of things here. Um, the one that I think is the most relevant is number eight. Um, the project shall be compatible with existing uses and other uses allowed by right in the district. And this language here has a lot of power to it in my opinion. Shall not detract from the character and scale of neighboring properties. That word character in particular, if somebody said, "Hey, we're going to lose, let's say, let's imagine Wilson's, we all wish it was still there, but imagine Wilson's was still operating. If someone was going to burn down Wilson's, that's not what they do. If someone's going to dynamite Wilson's and build housing instead, I think the planning board, you know, whoever the authority is, I'm not honestly not sure if it's the ZBA or the planning board, would
096have a huge problem with that." And to me, that's the protection of a special permit. um that that particular car uh language is flexible and allows a no unless and I can imagine you disagree and I'm happy to listen counselor Healey since you know special permits and how they get Yeah. So really I mean it's up to interpretation. So what you what you do here in the long run for developers Yes. You're making a little more harder for them because they got to pay the permit fees. They have to go to a couple meetings. They got to prove they can meet all these criteria in here and they're going to argue they can every time because that's what we do as developers. I' I've done it in in Deerfield. I've done it all around. We
097find a way to win, right? And what you do is by doing that, you also put it at the mercy of the planning board or zoning board and who's on it, right? Like if somebody's really progressive and is all about housing, it's up to their interpretation. So, we're taking by by not being defining this and saying, "No, we're not going to allow this." Like, this is our zoning ordinance. We're not going to allow it. You leave it up to whoever's in power in the planning board to make that that authority. And then this is basically useless at that point. What we're trying to do here, the intent of this and and we thought we did it. We thought we've collaborated and we've come to these conclusions. And I'm quite surprised that we're trying to change
098this now because we work so hard on it. And I feel like all that collaboration just is like going out the window and I'm getting really frustrated which that's a me thing. But I I will say like I by giving 50% of that first floor that was a huge compromise on my part because I want to give nothing. Nothing. I will not allow by special permit to take the whole first floor. I I I just won't like I'm going to vote against it because of that because that's not the spirit of the deal that we had. The spirit of the deal was we're compromising. Even if you build a new building, we're only asking for 50% of that first floor, which could be a coffee shop or wherever it may be because we need more
099of those in Greenfield, but whatever it may be, and you can still have accessible housing on the back half of the property on the first floor. You get what you want in that amendment. So, I I I just can't support this any further. Thank you, Councelor Garrett. I am I really respect and appreciate the work that the economic development committee put into this and I am not an economic development this year. So I have not had an opportunity to speak to this directly as a counselor and if I had I could have been violating open meeting law and I really did not want to cause Kathy or Laura or anybody else more headaches. So I am not trying to go back on a compromise. I'm not trying to change anything that 50/50 idea. I'm, you
100know, I have another amendment in there, but I will I can't say this yet, can I? I can't describe how I would vote on that, but I am happy that the spirit of compromise rains, um, is what I would say. And so, just to be very clear again, I'm not trying to change things last minute or disrespect EDC or the planning board, but this is the first opportunity to actually make an attempt to amend this in my capacity as a counselor. So, that's go nuts. Yeah. I I will let you have the last word. Okay. And then and then I think we can just take a vote. So I will say like I I respect everything you do, but where I disagree with you is this has been in EDC for months. You could have
101had a phone call. You could have sent an email with this language. We could have talked about this in EDC. To bring this to the meeting in front of us last minute is what we always ask everybody not to do. We don't want last minute questions. We do not want last minute things. And this is what I get. So, like it it it just surprises me and and I I don't really appreciate it to be honest with you. Uh councelor Perry, did you have your Okay. I was just praying for it to all be over. Councelor Bulock, I just, you know, this is the first time I'm hearing of this amendment, too. Um, and I believe that the compromise was first discussed when I was chair of EDC. It wasn't written at that point, but
102it was discussed. Um, so I think what I want to say about this is that I it's what's interesting to me is that the way that special permits and the use of them are shifting based on what the goal is. And so like I've sat in EDC many times and had people tell me like special permits were what gonna what was going to save us from being overrun with ADUs or special permits are you know are the and like now we need it for something else and it has no teeth. And so I think it's very clear um what how and what's spelled out here and how a special permit can and can't be utilized and the criteria for approval on it. And while I agree with you, councelor Healey, that yes, like a developer
103can come in, they can get a special permit, the planning board or whoever could tell them no. they could challenge that and then the then the city backs down because they don't want to deal with the challenge. I just feel like we're creating all of these hypothetical situations that like we're once again we don't have developers knocking down our door. If the fear that has been created around that was based in any reality of developers on the ground in Greenfield, I would have a I would have a real concern. Um, but this is something where I think we can look three months down the road and say, you know, a developer wants to lay out Wilson's and, you know, so no, of course not by by right of special permit. Um, and then we can
104re reassess. Um, I'm having a hard time reconciling How we make it possible for even small developers that are community-based, that are grant-f funded, that are often using city and taxpayer dollars to try to make actual affordable housing function in our city because not obviously not everyone's going to agree with me, but like that's the best case scenario for affordable housing. Like what we have going on right now in Greenfield is the best case. It's not corporate landlords. And if we want to actually do something for affordable housing, like someone said it, let's put a 3% rent cap in place. You wait till who fills this room, you know, like it's this room would be filled by people saying no, we are not going to put a rent cap. That would actually help people in
105the immediate. And I I own a rental property. I say put a let's put a rent cap on. No one can no landlord can raise more than 3%. So this I just think is like I don't see this as an actual issue. And if we do see this becoming a problem, I think the council can easily bring this back to the floor to to vote differently on. Um and I actually do want to just say I think this is like a continued spirit of compromise. Even if you don't vote in support, I do I still think the compromise was beneficial. Councelor Bottomley, I want to point out again, this isn't anti-ousing and it's a very small portion of the entire city of Greenfield and we're just saying at least the the spirit I got is
106that we want a tiny portion of the storefront of a portion of central commercial to be dedicated to commercial. That's it. It's a small you can have floors and floors of housing and the accessible housing on the back, but on the 50% facing the front of a small part of the commercial district. So, it feels I don't know. It just seems like a reasonable compromise to me. I feel like if we throw a special permit into it, it's I don't know. I haven't watched multiple meetings on that, so I don't know what the consequences of that would be. All right, it looks like we don't have any other comments. So, let's call to question. Does the amendment require the same number or does it have the same vote threshold as the original thing that it's
107a part of? It needs to be a majority, a simple majority or a 2/3. an amendment the amendment. Well, it's a majority because right I think that the councelor Garrett's proposal is pro- housing and thus would require just a simple majority. Right. I just want to make sure that I understand. So the amendment needs seven votes which is a majority to pass. Then if the main motion is amended is voted then that needs a 2/3 nine to pass. So can we take a roll call, please? Thank you. On the motion to amend. Councelor Golib pass. Councelor Gordon yes. Councelor Master Tataro, no. Councelor Bottomley, no. Councelor Bullock, yes. Councelor Perry, no. Councelor Healey, no. Councelor Brown, yes. Vice President Garrett, yes. Councelor Minhos, no. Councelor Torono, yes. Councelor Golib. Yes. Does the president wish to
108vote? Yes. And yes. The motion passes by majority. All right. So now we're back to the original. You're back to the main motion as amended. As amended. Can we do a roll call on that, please? Do you want to have discussion or no? Does anybody want discussion? I just have a point. Yeah. So, if we vote on this and we shoot it down, it's done. There's no bring it back as or can we vote on as the main motion after? Say it one more time. So, if if this fails, can we go back to the main motion and vote on that or is this the final vote? This is the final vote. If this gets voted down, we can't go back to the main. We don't go back to the main motion. Sorry. If the
109amended motion gets voted does not receive nine votes, then it fails. Then that fails, but then we do not get to vote. It fails because you've already amended it. Okay. Thank you. So the um I'm sorry I should wait. Yes. Go ahead. The planning board voted in favor of this. So if this got voted down, it could come back to EDC without having to wait the two years. So if you don't want this to happen this way and you want to vote against it, it does give you a chance to look at it again at EDC, but the process has to start again with a public hearing and all that. And if we tabled it, does that go back to EDC? Is there enough time in the timeline? So, the first five zoning amendments on
110the agenda need to be voted on or before June 4th. So, there we're not talking a whole lot of time here. Uh, I'm going to call an audible and we're going to take a 5m minute break because it looks like folks need a little bit of a break. Five. I'm going to call us back to order. That means you, Mr. Toronto. Okay. So, I just want to open it up if there are further discussion before voting on the main motion as amended. Are you sure? Yes. I just You almost weren't going to get out of here. No, but Well, let's get out of here then. But, Councelor Perry, you know, uh, it makes it very hard to try to make the right vote when the rug keeps getting moved and things keep happening. And we
111spent a lot of time before this meeting studying up on this stuff, listening to the public, figuring out what we want to do. And then we get here and it's kind of this chess board moving stuff and it doesn't really help what we're trying to be doing here. So, let's just stay focused on what we came here to do and do what we came here to do and stick to that. All right. So, let's call to vote the Are we doing a roll call? Yes. So, this is a roll call vote on the motion as amended. Councelor Golib, sorry. This requires nine, a twothirds majority to pass. So, nine. Councelor Golib, yes. Councelor Gordon, yes. Councelor Master Taro, nope. Councelor Bottomley, no. Councelor Bullock, yes. Councelor Perry, no. Councelor Healey, no. Councelor Brown, yes. Vice
112President Garrett, yes. Councelor Minhos, no. Councelor Toonzo, yes. Does the president wish to vote? Yes. And yes. The motion fails with eight favorable votes. All right. Our next motion is councelor order number FY25-050. The city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 zoning section 48 mixed residential business uses subsection A to add the language in bold and remove the language and strike through to read as follows 200-48 mixed residential and business uses amend section 200-48 mixed residential business uses of the zoning ordinance to follow the first floor dwellings and mixed use lots by amending subsection A so that reads as follows striking All dwelling units shall be above the first floor level. The street level which faces the street with the highest traffic use
113and amending with firstf flooror dwelling units shall not be allowed along the street side with the highest traffic use and shall be ADA compliant. First floor dwelling units shall be located behind commercial space. First floor commercial space shall occupy no less than 50% of the first floor square footage. and further amends that the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantive changes to the numbering ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield. Majority vote required seven. Do we have a second? Second. Councelor Healey, how did it go in EDC? So this was three yeses and one abstension positive and planning board was 50. Great. I will uh entertain any discussion on this and if you want to
114expand any on what this does and the rationale and why why are we here today? So yeah, what this does is essentially if you have you're we're allowing in the mi mixeduse building to allow first floor dwelling units in 50% of the space by right Mr. Tutoro. Yeah. Um the key word in this is shall. Um so the first floor commercial spaces shall occupy no less than 50%. So, but that's up to the building owner or the developer to decide, you know, how much of that frontage front half it will be commercial space. And I believe I can't speak for him, but I think I I believe uh Councilman Min House abstained because he wanted to be a little more specific with the ADA compliance. Um so yeah, I was just wondering if I'm sorry,
115Councelor Menos, do you want to be recognized? Okay, sorry. All right. I was just wondering if it was possible because the idea with allowing firstf floor uh residential units was specifically for accessibility. Um I'm totally for that. I can understand that. initially if you take that out of context I I I wouldn't allow um first floor residential but for if it's specifically for accessible housing and for the development of accessible housing um I was wondering if there could be something that we could add um which it not only would say hey it has to be ADA compliant most developments have to be anyways um if there's something that we could add is that legal to add something where we can say this is specifically for accessible housing. That was that was my that was why
116I had abstained. Councelor Gordon, I think that we talked about this in EDC um and specifically the language, right? because um I actually shared that concern um and wanted to make it, you know, a firmer um restriction so that it really does go to people who who, you know, need this accessible housing and need it to be on the first floor. And if I remember correctly, um, other people in EDC should correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that what we really came kind of kept coming back to is that it's it's really hard to for us to say anything specific that is above and beyond ADA compliance just because that's where you get into really vague areas um of, you know, it's not even of the law. Like at that point, we would
117kind of be making up our own restrictions. Um and that and legally that does get very dicey. Um and I don't believe that we have the power um as a council to um you restrict. Well, we may but I don't think that we have it here. Um and this is something that I would be happy to work with you and other members of the council on um but to restrict it, you know, so that only certain people can rent certain housing. Um, so I think, you know, the spirit of this is at least to start out by making it as accessible as we can right now. And then if there are ways that we can ensure that the folks who most need this housing are the ones who access it, then I would love to
118to work with people on that. I'm not seeing any other discussion. Councelor Garrett, I um I handed out a proposed amendment and frankly the last discussion has made me less eager to introduce it, but I just wanted to mention that this is something that came to EDC last year and it was an amendment that was a little bit there was less to it. Frankly, there was basically the only thing in there was an allowance for firstf flooror residential spaces and there was none of the percentages, none of the ADA compliance aspects of it. And I withdrew the amendment after my colleagues on that committee expressed concerns about commercial spaces, which again I just want to emphasize is very much that common ground that we're trying to seek. So this amendment I actually could vote for
119without feeling like we're doing something that's going to harm the city in any fashion there. The reason there is that piece of paper in front of you though is I'm not just thinking about Main Street alone as far as mixed residential commercial spaces. Currently we don't allow mixed use in any district of the city that is residential. And I think that's an a thing that we should consider in the future. Not anytime soon, don't worry. Um, but something that is worth considering. Like you think about Silicon Valley, they started businesses in their garages. What's to say that somebody couldn't build an ADU and have most of it be commercial space and have that be a, you know, maybe it's some person who's on a computer, they have a, you know, they're having protein shakes. They
120don't have a kitchen and they have a bed and a bathroom in that garage. I know that's a really, you know, obscure example, but my thought with this is that 50/50 thing is again very rigid. And so lack of rigidity is a improvement in my eyes to zoning. All that being said, I'm going to just listen for a second if other folks have to speak and kind of hold my powder. Council Master Choro, again, the 50/50 is not written in stone. its commercial space shall be no less than 50% of the frontage. Um, so there you have it. Councelor Haley and then councelor Toron after that. Yeah, I think this one's really important. I think accessible housing is something that we really need in this community. We have an abundance of elderly people that would
121love to sell their four bedroomedroom house and have a beautiful one-bedroom, you know, accessible house to kind of retire in and enjoy their community, which is another reason why we're looking at ADUs, right? But, um, so I favor this one as written. I think I think 50% of the I wanted 6040 but you know the 50% um was a good number for me because I feel like it still protects enough commercial space. Um we also you know to go back we did have the GBA at our meetings and um the director of housing and economic development or I always butcher the title um was there as well. They both liked this language. So, and the zone the planning board liked this language. I I would just like to have it go through as is if
122we could. Um but that's just my opinion. Council Toronto. Um this one I think I and maybe just as a general statement, I I think I've said this in the past. Uh we've run into this with uh this stay with me for a minute. Um it's almost like that if you if you build it they will come kind of feel the dreams thing, right? Um the harder we make things for folks, the literally the harder we make things for folks. So the e people are going to do the right thing. People are going to want to do the right thing. People are going to be able to do the right thing if we make it easier and more accessible for them to do it. Um this this equates to like part of our trash problem.
123This equates to our housing problem. This creates to a lot of circumstances. I think that that as a as a fundamental idea, I just think that we should keep in the back of our minds. Um, the harder we make things, the harder it is for folks. And that's all I really want to say about that. Councelor Menhus, I just would like to remind the council that myself included and a bunch of other counselors originally didn't even want to have any residential on the first floor. Um, our position was that if it's the central commercial district, it's in the name. It's it's specifically for your yes dwindling, yes, struggling commercial district, but that's what it's for. Um, I was convinced to compromise because of a glaring need for accessible housing, but this is still a compro.
124This is still a huge compromise to allow residential on the first floor in what is supposed to be designated as your main commercial district. I think we're ready to vote. So, we'll call it to the question. Uh let's do a roll call. And this is a majority required seven. Councelor Golib, yes. Councelor Gordon, yes. Councelor Master Tataro, yes. Councelor Bottomley, yes. Councelor Bullock, yes. Councelor Perry, yes. Councelor Healey, yes. Councelor Brown, yes. Vice President Garrett, yes. Councelor Menhus, yes. Councelor Toronto, yep. Does the president wish to vote? Yes. And yes. The motion passes unanimously. All right, we're ready for the next one. Order number FY25-05 0.1. Um, the city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 zoning section 48 mixed residential business uses subsection
125B to add language in bold and remove language and strike through to read as follows. 200-48 mixed residential/b businessiness uses amends section 200-48 mixed residential business uses of the zoning ordinance to allow first floor dwellings and mixeduse lots by amending subsection B. So it reads as follows striking business uses mixed with residential uses on the same floor shall be limited to office uses only and replacing with business uses mixed with residential uses above the first floor should be limited to offices only. and further amends that the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-s substantiative changes to the numbering of ordinance be permitted in the order that be in compliance with the numbering format of this code of the city of Greenfield. Uh this is a twothirds vote which would be
126nine and do I have a second? That was councelor masteruro. All right and and then I'm just going back to my notes here again. This was three yeses. one uh abstension and positive vote and it was a 50 planning board vote. Um and the idea here was just to have any uses above the first floor that weren't residential to be limited to office use. So you didn't have um you know mixed uses on the the same floors or allowed businesses where people are trying to live. Yeah. Any discussion? Councelor Master Tutoto. Yeah, I just want to uh I just want to say the reason my rationale behind this was um particularly well that's either that this goes for either um the GS the GC or the CC. Um, I believe that's the way it was
127originally written. Um, I didn't think that having office space on the first floor would be conducive to um, commercial business. If in fact somebody want to have a commercial business on the first floor. So um so and my personal life experience as I mentioned to you once uh I I had an office space on Lafayette Street uh in Soho and typically the ground floor are shops uh you know clothing stores or or what have you. and a floor or a floor or two above that are generally office spaces and everything above that are apartments. I mean we don't have to get that strict. However, um I don't know if I you know some people have mentioned beauty salons as an example. I don't know if I'd want to live in a an apartment that had
128my next door neighbor was a beauty salon because the uh just the odor from a beauty salon would not make it conducive to uh a nice house uh apartment to live in. Somebody mentioned something about um uh a a restaurant on the top floor of an apartment building. That works in a hotel. Um but in an apartment building, they have private residents. Um, and I don't think living in a secure building and having strangers walking through the building to get to a restaurant on the roof is uh the thing to do. Um, I'm flexible with this is, you know, to, you know, less intrusive businesses being available. But on the other hand, that the idea is housing. So, do we want to put a bunch of businesses above the first floor when we're trying to
129develop housing? Um, a couple of office spaces is very unintrusive. Maybe if a CPA wanted a little office, you know, to do his work in or hard work in, but um to to create the opportunity, you know, for somebody to have a carpet to shop on the same floor as apartments makes no sense. That's that's why I wrote that in there. Councelor Garrett. So if we don't do this and we So we just allowed first floor dwellings on uh in mixeduse buildings. If you read the strikeout, if we don't pass this, then you're banning restaurants on the first floor in a building that has an apartment in the back because right now it says businesses use us use uses mixed with residential use in the same floor shall be limited office uses only. So, we
130absolutely need to pass this. Personally, I would love a rooftop restaurant, but regardless, like this has to happen if we're going to keep our downtown able to have the kind of businesses we want on first floors. So, I'm totally in support even if I would love to see like a rooftop bar or something like that. Council men, for me, this was about quality of life for the people who would be living in those floors that are above. Um, even though I'm inclined to encourage more business growth and more space for business, I think it you would have to prioritize the people who are spending their lives there. Um, so yeah, this makes sense. I'm going to recognize myself. Um, and I'm just wondering if maybe this is something that could come back and think about
131if there's other uses that could be put in beyond just office. And I I don't know what they are right in my head right here in the moment, but um maybe this is something because I I don't want to make changes on the fly. I don't think that's good legislating, but maybe EDC can look at like maybe there's some things we haven't thought of. So, councelor Master, yeah, not to dwell on my life experiences. Um, once upon a time, I rented a uh a railroad apartment in Spanish Harlem on East 92nd Street. Um, and my next door neighbor cooked collard greens. Okay. It was the most miserable freaking experience in my life. Um, cuz but I don't know if anybody here has been subjected to people cooking collard greens. I love collard greens. I love
132the taste of collard greens, but man, when they're cooking, they stink. So uh so I think we have to be careful about um be careful about how we're mixing you know certain I mean obviously people can cook whatever the hell they want but my point is again we have to define what is non-intrusive as far as businesses go if we're going to have mixed use on upper floors. Did I think I have see hands, but I can't quite tell. So, councelor Gordon, we got you. Thanks. Um I I do agree that this feels a little more rigid than than I would love. I would love a little more flexibility. I hear you um you know, suggesting that maybe it go back to EDC. Um but I will say I I think this is fine. I
133just think it's fine. I don't think that it's actually going to make a huge difference one way or the other. And I really appreciate the the intention behind it. Um because I think that that you're right that a lot of people, you know, would want apartments uh would want to know that their rental isn't, you know, right up next to a loud business of some kind. Um, I will also just remind us that one thing that we've heard consistently from Hannah from at the GBA and Amy Khalilain and others in the city is that one of the bigger problems we have with attracting development um and business of all kinds to Greenfield is that we're kind of constantly going back at zoning stuff and kind of like picking at it again. And I think, you
134know, I'm glad that we have this meeting tonight to just get through a lot of this stuff that we've been talking about for months and months and months. Um, and I I'm happy to vote for this, you know, on its own merit. And I think that um it would be good for us to be done talking about it. Toronto, I'm just looking for a little bit of clarification. Maybe I misheard um something to do with is office space on the first floor not considered commercial. Is that what's being suggested? I that's what it sounded like to me and office is very much commercial. Does someone want to answer that? Who was working on this? Well, I the way it was originally written, uh, it takes away the opportunity. I I think councelor Garrett, Vice President
135Garrett said it best. Um, we don't want to limit it to just office space on the first floor. On the first floor. Limiting. So, it's it's making you can have a restaurant first. Okay. Gotcha. No, it it sounded like we were like taking away the opportunity for or or for anything other than office space to be on the first floor. No, if if the is kind of the same. Okay. All right. Then I I was misinterpreting what was being said. Okay. Thank you, Mike. All right. I think we're all on the same page. So, let's call this for a vote. Roll call, please. Councelor Golib, yes. Councelor Gordon, yes. Councelor Master Tataro, yes. Councelor Bottomley, yes. Councelor Bullock, yes. Councelor Perry, yes. Councelor Healey, yes. Councelor Brown, yes. Vice President Garrett, yes. Councelor Minhos, yes.
136Councelor Torono. Yep. Does the president wish to vote? Yes. And yes. The motion passes unanimously. All right. Let's go to Heights. Okay. Order number FY25-049. The city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 zoning article 5 dimensional regulations section 5-2 table of dimensional requirements by replacing 50 with 80 feet for the height limit in the central commercial district and replacing 40 with 60 feet for the height limit in the general commercial district as attached in exhibit A and further amends that the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantive changes to the numbering and ordinance be permitted in order that be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield. Majority vote required, which would
137be seven votes. Second. All right. So, that was um again, I'm just going through my notes here. A three yes, one abstension positive vote. Um the rationale here was we wanted to give opportunities for developers to build taller buildings in these districts. Um we heard a lot of sentiment from you know people at the meetings about height concerns. Um but I'll get into that in the conversation. Uh so that's basically the rationale. We wanted to raise it to allow taller buildings to be allowed because we're running out of ver horizontal space and we need to go vertical. Unfortunately that's what's happening nowadays. Councelor Toronto, I just wonder was it a PB recommendation on this? It was 5 50. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any discussion about raising the roof? Minhos Minhas. Um, so my concern
138with this one was I remember in one of the EDC meetings we had um Hannah from the GBA come in and one of the concerns that she had raised was that when you do this I'm like it does two things. one, it can, you know, detract from the character of your the historical nature of your of your district, but also it's just you just have like lopsided development where some buildings just stick out and it's just awkward. Um, and it seems like this number perhaps is just kind of arbitrary. Um, also just learned from the from the public comment section too is that why so why are we going higher than Northampton? like we're not a bigger city than Northampton. That that doesn't make sense. Councelor Perry, I actually changed my mind on this one.
139I was going to vote yes, but after listening to people in the community, listening to the uh historical commission, I I kind of agree that uh changing the look of downtown may not be the smartest idea. I understand what everybody's saying, but every time I have someone come to town or we're driving around, the first thing sometimes they'll say is, "What's that over there?" It's the highrise that you can see just about from anywhere. And then I didn't really think about it until that was comment was made a few times where that the highrise, which my grandmother lived there. It's a great place, but if you live if you're looking at it from Bank Row or the fairgrounds from Deerfield Street, you look up the hill and you see it, it's it really stands out.
140And so I kind of got swayed by the public talking about how Main Street could look radically different if we raise it that high. I'd be willing to compromise on the height, but the way it's written now, I would vote no. Councelor Haley. Yeah. So, I get the sentiment of the the height and the downtown feel. Um, I will say Main Street being a historic district. The likelihood of somebody right on the frontage of Main Street to be able to add three stories to one of those buildings is nearly impossible. Um, not to mention that if you improve over 50% of the building square footage, you have to bring it up the current codes, which would mean new new snow loading, new wind loading. It just wouldn't be feasible. Where this is feasible is next
141to the courthouse where we have a vacant lot and we have a hideous courthouse. By the way, um, where you could put another hideous 80ft tall building without making it worse, right? um on Chapman Street in the parking lot behind Wilson's where you could put another taller building which is far enough back from Main Street. So if you're standing on Main Street, the the angle of sight you'll never see it over the 50 foot tall buildings, you know, I don't think you're going to have I and don't even and this is a what if, but it'd be really surprising if you could even build an 80 foot tall building on Main Street, you know, like but I'm willing to compromise on the height in this district to, you know, 70 feet or 60 feet. But
142we need housing and this is the one place I think we could actually find housing is allowing these developers in that area that already have very tall buildings like the courthouse and the apartment building to uh develop higher. Um but that's again my opinion. I've got councelor Torono next and then councelor Golib and then councelor masteruro. Yeah, I don't think that this is my this to me is kind of a nothing burger. Um the I echo councelor Hilly's uh sentiment of there aren't a lot of places this could happen if it might happen but why restrict it from happening and I will also say that um the the idea of a a restriction based on what we want to call a historical look for downtown. We have buildings that were there, if you look back
143in the history, that were three stories taller than they were now and then we're cut down since then. And now we're only like one or two stories. It's just how it was at the time. Um, it's not going to really affect I mean, do we really want to care about aesthetics? Like I mean come on. We've we've got some pretty tacky looking things that we've done that are like postmodern now that don't fit our aesthetics when we want to pretend to be a historical town. We're not like it's it's grow up. It's it's the 21st century. Like things are going to change. We're going to have a lot more glass even though we don't want a lot more glass. I agree that the courthouse is gross, but like, you know, we we spent all this
144this time and energy worrying about the aesthetics of preserving something that's from 1940. Sorry folks, a lot of you that were around in 1940 aren't going to be here in 20 years. So, like, we're going to move into a new era. We're going to look like Futurama or something like the Jetsons at some point. We've got robots and and and all sorts of crazy AI crap that's happening. So like worrying about those type of aesthetics and those type of limitations just like if we can we're we're probably not going to be able to build an 80 foot building. So the fear-mongering mentality that sits out there is is a is a straw man. That's all it is. Like if we can do it, sure. Why not? We're going to need a freaking elevator for it
145anyway. That costs a crapload of money. So what developers going to want to do that anyway? Like so why why just put restrictions for the sake of putting restrictions is what I'm saying. Councelor Golib, a couple things. um we might end up voting the same way. And I want to acknowledge the like the the pride in the downtown and the beauty of downtown and and I think that people's um naming of that is a is coming from a good place. Um and my constituents want a bustling, thriving downtown. They want people downtown. Um at least this is what I've heard. Um, and so I'm I am uh inclined to vote for this, but my question is why are we why are we zoning for feet instead of stories? Like, yeah, the problem with I'll let
146you jump in. Thank you. The problem with stories is they're undefined. So, think about this. I could build a five-story building with 20 foot floors and it's 100 feet tall. There's no definition to what a story is. So, um, that that's why I stuck with feet. It's more definitive with height. And then we've talked about this because I feel like you could get away with your story heights to if you want high ceilings for, you know, aesthetics like this beautiful building that and I actually really like this building. Um, then you could do it in in a high-rise, right? So, that's that's is it cost effective? Probably not. Not would it happen? Probably not. But you give that capability to somebody. Cuz master tutorial. Yeah. Um, I'm not suggesting it's going to happen or if
147I really even care whether or not it happens, but I had that parking lot in mind when we initially started discussing uh this um having a uh a market rate um building rental or even um co-op um behind the courthouse on that available space. And if it was done right, um would be an ideal place for somebody who have people who have actually have some change in their pockets, market rate housing, um to live in that specific neighborhood where they could walk to the post office, walk to the train station, walk to restaurants. Uh so that's the initial thought of that. Um, of course I don't know if it's ever going to happen and you know and quite frankly whether it does or not that's fine. However, I did originally want uh Hope Street from
148Maine to Prospect Street in the hopes that that if that ever came to fruition, it would have a Hope Street address as opposed to a Prospect Street address would be ideal to have a commercial business on the first floor such as a restaurant. Um, but we opted not to take the side streets into consideration. So there you have it. All right. I have councelor Perry and then councelor Bullock. So what what I'm hearing is downtown, don't worry about it because it's never going to happen. But we might want to have it happen on this one parcel on Hope Street. So we're going to do this. Uh maybe in the future there'll be a 10-story building on Hope Street, which I'm sure Hope and Olive across the street. And the Salvation Army will really love to
149be looking out their windows and seeing that. And people who live on Hope Street, including someone here, and people who live on Prospect Street, where I work, are going to love to look out their windows and see a 10story building on Hope Street because we might have had a reason to put that there. What I what I will say in regards to that is if you look out your window, you're only going to see the first story. I'm sorry. Uh, I had councelor Bulock ahead of you and then councelor Garrett and then um I just want to say I'm a hope street resident and I am happy to have more housing on Hope Street and I've had a lot of conversations and I think that a lot of my neighbors would have a difficult time
150with a six or or I don't even know how many stories you could fit in 80 feet if you really tried but six or seven seventory um unit and we, you know, even on that parcel. But all of that to say, and I I say this as someone who a developer bought a parcel next to my home and wants to build a three family unit on it. And I like, do I want that to happen? Yes. Is it going to change the way I utilize my yard and it have existed for the last 15 years? Yes. Is it going to be is change hard? Yes. I have two dogs that are on an invisible fence. Like these are the adaptations we have to take um in order to make it our city functional for for
151more people. Um, and I want there's the really specific thing I want to talk about is, you know, today we're talking about this, you know, specific limit on if a housing if a if a unit could be built with multiple stories and the Congress Street um, acres building is brought up a lot as like some kind of eyesore. Um, and I just want to share that that that housing specifically for an aging population is so needed. Um, I have a friend Joe who lives there who lived in a shed in my neighbor's yard for the first 10 years that I lived on Hope Street. And he's a vet and he was able to get into that building after many years of being homeless. He lived in a shed, like an actual shed. And so I
152think it's so important and the other reason it's so important that we even open the door for this type of development is the taxes on that building are $128,000 a year paid into our our our tax uh our tax pool. next this month, not next month, we are going to have a lot of discussion on the 21st about what we can spend our taxes on and how we don't have enough in our taxes to spend on a city that meets the needs of everybody. And so that unit that everyone calls an eyesore is worth $6.2 million. It's assessed at $6.2 million and puts $128,000 plus dollars into our city each year. It infl I think 7% this year. They paid more taxes this year. So, there's like this balance of like, do I want to
153look out my window and see a six-story unit? I don't know. Like, I do care about how it looks. I was psyched when we redid the design of the fire station. The first one I was like, no. And then they redid it and I was like, that's better, you know? And so, the aesthetics do matter to me. Um, and I think change is hard. And I think that this is like an easy yes for us if someone wants to come build a building that's going to be worth $10 million and pay taxes on it into our school system that is about to be underfunded and it can perpetually in like in perpetuity. I say yes. Councelor Garrett, thank you. Um I'm unequivocally in support of this. If we don't build up, we're going to have
154to build out and that means taking up farmland. that means sprawl that is going to be less efficient, less people, you know, in the downtown shopping at the commercial businesses that we all agree we want to see. Um, so yeah, this is an easy easy yes for me. It's I understand and I am sympathetic to concerns about aesthetics as well. You know, there are ways to, you know, it absolutely is fair and if we don't do this, you're going to have sprawl or people won't live here, you know, and we want people to move to our downtown. We want people to live in our city. Um, the other thing that came to mind is we've replaced many of our water manes on Main Street and that allows us to be confident that we have the
155infrastructure to actually handle buildings that are larger and that's the re part of the reason that we do that is to, you know, build for the future. So, if we want to be able to, you know, as councelor Bulick was saying, pay for the maintenance of that infrastructure, we should be using it. You don't build a six lane highway and not have cars, right? Although, please let's not build sixlane highways. Um, and as by the way, in this building, I hate No, I'm kidding. I'm done. So, I'm going to get a a chance to just I I've been um wrestling with this one as well because I I think it's really important to build higher um and to increase. And I do have a little bit of concern that 80 is a little bit higher
156than I'm a little comfortable with just giving looking at other towns. You know, I work in Ammerst and everybody talks about that building that's really tall because it stands out, but it won't always stand out. There will be other buildings that will come in that will make it not look weird over by triang by over by Triangle Street, if you know what I'm talking about. Um, so I was thinking about 65 and 50 and I know councelor Healey, you said 70. I don't know y'all. I don't know if there's like a little bit that would make us comfortable. So I was going to ask councelor Healey what you were thinking if we want to do an amendment or if we just want to go straight in. you know, in in good faith compromise with with
157some of the people that made really good points in public. I I could see going down to 70 ft in the central commercial district, but um I still think, you know, 70 ft gets you gets you a lot of housing and and you the more you could build in a single lot, the more affordable it is in the end because you you you have more units and and the landlord can make just as much money per unit, you know, so there's a a scale of economy there, right? So, um, if other counselors are okay with it, I'm going to just make a motion to amend that section. And if I could get my computer back open because I don't have a great memory. Um, so I'd like to amend it to say amend the table
158of dimensional requirements by increasing the height limit for the central commercial district from 50 to 70 ft and everything else will remain the same. Second. Any discussion? Uh, councelor Garrett and then councelor Perry. I'm good with 80 ft. You know, I'm the one who said I'd be willing to compromise, but I don't want to make the council do something they don't want to do. I'm still gonna vote the way I want to vote. So, I don't I don't need to have an amendment. If if it sounds to me like the majority of the council is happy with what is proposed and I and that's fine with me. I'm I'm still going to vote the way I feel I should vote and so I don't feel the need to make an amendment. Councelor Gordon, I I
159will I'm willing to go along with 70 ft if that's what it takes to get this passed. Um I am still a fan of 80 feet. Um, and if folks, you know, if you in all of your fun spare time want to go back and and look at all of the planning board discussions of this and the EDC discussions of this, there was actually um there were several lengthy discussions of this particular number. So, you know, the planning board in particular came to it pretty thoughtfully and and we talked about should it be higher, you know, than 80 ft and and they agreed and then EDC agreed with them that the answer was no. um but that there are good reasons particularly around having an economy of scale that would attract more developers because they
160can build more units into a building um that that 80 ft was preferable. So I'm grudgingly willing to compromise but I would prefer to stick with it as written originally. Councelor Trzer. Um, I would also, you know, I'd be I'd be open to to something, but I I think we should leave it as uh recommended. Um, I don't think we should be worrying about whatever Northampton is doing. Um, if we were to go on that model, New York wouldn't have never existed, right? Like they've got plenty of things that are taller than 80 feet. Um, and I'm not saying we're New York. We're never going to be that way. We're not going to try to do like like Turners did and make like First Street, Second Street, Third Street. That was just that was ridiculous.
161They thought they were going to be the new New York. They weren't. Um, but it doesn't it doesn't mean because somebody else doesn't have the foresight that we shouldn't have the foresight into creating something that it may look a little different right now. Like like you were mentioning with the the Ammeris building on Triangle Street there. I know exactly what you're talking about in the Rotary. It does look freaking weird especially because it used to be a small bank of America like and Bertuchi was right there but it doesn't mean that like increasing something incrementally or allowing something to increase incrementally across way not prohibiting it I guess is is I think the more important part of it is again to go back to like I was saying with with the with the trash stuff
162like if you don't if you if you make it easier for somebody to do something, they're going to be able to do it and they're going to be able to do it well. But if you keep prohibiting things and and blocking things all the time and and being afraid of what might be different than what your conception might be, then nothing's ever going to change. Like nothing's ever going to get improved because what like like councelor Garrett said, we have options. We can go horizontally. We got a sprawl buster in the room, right, Al? So, which way we going to go? We going to go up or are we going to go out? So, that's the question for all of us at this point is which way we going to go? And where my mind
163goes and I don't think this that I don't think there are answers to this, but I'm curious what folks would say on the lots where we could build like what is the difference? like how many units is that? How many how many homes is that that we would be if we went from 80 to 70 on those on the lots where we're seeing growth? Like what does that look like? What are we voting against if we if we amend? Councelor Haley, I see your hand. Yeah, I'm just kind of like running some numbers in my head. So like let's just say for instance those were 60 by60 buildings and they were 3600 square feet of floor and each unit was 1,000 square feet or 1,200 square feet three units per floor you know but if
164you have room to go wider it depends on the lot constraints right so it's really hard to answer it could be 100 by 60 you know um so that's a tough one to answer but you know it could be anywhere from 3 to 10 units per floor right so I think we're ready to vote on this amendment. Yep. This a roll call vote on the motion to amend. Councelor Gool pass. Councelor Gordon. I'm also going to pass. Councelor Master Tataro. I think we go with what we Yes. Wait, you're just Oh, sorry. You're a No. No. Councelor Bottomley. No. Councelor Bullick. No. Councelor Perry, abstain. Councelor Healey, yes. Councelor Brown, no. Count uh Vice President Garrett, no. Councelor Minhos, no. Councelor Toonzo, negative. Councelor Golib, no. Councelor Gordon, no. Does the president wish to vote?
165Yes. And yes. The motion fails. The amendment fails. Pardon me. All right. So, we're back to the original and I I'm just going to call to question because I think we've been talking about it for a little bit. So, let's go to a roll call. So, this is 80 ft. 80 ft. Wait. Point of order. Yes. If you call the question, then we have to vote to call the question and then vote. Oh, never vote. I withdraw. Let's vote. order. Um, there's two parts to the I mean there's two heights, right, to this. Oh, cuz you just said 80 ft. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cuz the other just only changed the Right. Okay, we're good. The motion is written in the packet. Roll call vote. Councelor Golib, yes. Councelor Gordon, yes. Council Master Tataro, yes. Councelor
166Bottomley, yes. Councelor Bulock, yes. Councelor Perry, no. Councelor Healey, yes. Councelor Brown, yes. Vice President Garrett, yes. Councelor Minhos, no. Councelor Torono, yes. Does the president wish to vote? Yes. And yes, the motion passes with 10 votes. All right. Page 16. So this is order number FY25-051. The city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 zoning section 56 accessory dwelling units to add language in bold and remove language in the strikethrough as required revisions under the affordable homes act signed by Governor Moraley relative to accessory dwelling units 760 CMR 71.00 00 to read as follows and attached exhibit A and further amends that the table contents an index of the code and further that non-substantiative changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted
167in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield and second. Okay. Um this was uh a 3 yes one abstension positive and planning board was a 50 on this as well. Um and the rationale here was just we had to update our zoning to match what the governor's and her team had come up with for the ADU um protected ADU zoning. Um this does that. Um there is one correction that got missed in this final thing. So I'm just going to let you know. Um section E part B needs to be stried. And if you're wondering what that is, I'll pull it up here. Um it's the applicant must follow the same procre procedure described in the ordinance including the submission of a notorized letter
168declaring owner occupancy. So that was talked about in EDC but was never picked up in the updated zoning. discussion. All right, let's vote. Roll call. And this requires seven. It did. It received a second. Councelor Goolan. Yes. Councelor Gordon. Councelor Master Tataro. I'm going to pass now. Councelor Bottomley. Yes. Councelor Bullock. Yes. Councelor Perry. No. Councelor Healey. Yes. Councelor Brown. Yes. Councelor Garrett. Yes. Councelor Minhos. No. Councelor Toronto. Yep. Councelor Master Tataro. No. Does the president wish to vote? Yes. And yes. The motion passes by 10 votes. Okay. Am I good? All right. Order number FY25-052. The city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 zoning section 61 site plan review and approval of subsection B projects requiring site plans to add language in
169bold and remove language in strike through as required revisions under the affordable homes act. Um signed by Governor Mora Healey relative to accessory dwelling units 760 CMR CMR 71.00 to read as follows 200-61 site plan review and approval projects requiring site plans the creation expansion substantial alteration or change in use of the following uses shall require site plan review and approval. All uses requiring a special permit. Any business, commercial, industrial or institutional use except home occupations not requiring a special permit. Any residential uses of and this is stried two and replaced with three or more units including subdivisions. any site containing more than one principal use, creation of an unprotected accessory dwelling unit subsection 5 added by the city council on May 20th, 2020, and further amends at the table of contents and index of
170the code and further that non-substantiative changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of this code of city of Greenfield. Majority vote required seven. Second. All right. Um in EDC this was again three yeses, one extension positive recommendation. Um and this was just updating the residential uses from two to three um units including subdivisions and this was a 50 in planning board as well. And the the reason behind this was because we already allowed two families by right. So discussion. All right, we'll call to a vote. Roll call. Councelor Goolan, yes. Councelor Gordon, yes. Councelor Master Tataro, yes. Councelor Bottomley, yes. Councelor Bullock, yes. Councelor Perry, no. Council Healey, yes. Council Brown, yes. Vice President Garrett, yes. Council Minhos, no. Oops. Councelor Toronto,
171yep. Does the president wish to vote? Yes. And yes. The motion passes with 10 votes. All right. Order number FY25-079. The city, this is the citizens petitions. The city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 section 200-56 accessory dwelling units subdivision D accessory dwelling units standards paragraph 2 by adding the following language section 2000-56 accessory dwelling units is hereby further amended in subsection D accessory dwelling unit standards subp part two by adding after the words only one accessory dwelling unit may be created within a single family house or lot the following new language once A single protected use ADU has been permitted on a lot pursuant to 760 CMR 71.02. Definition of protected use ADU. No additional ADU should be permitted on a lot
172pursuant to 760 CMR 71.03 number five. And further amends that the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantiative changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield. This is a twothirds vote requiring nine second. [Music] And I um report from committee. We actually didn't vote on this because we wanted to hear what the planning board said in their meeting um which followed our meeting. So we never did take a vote on this in EDC. Um the planning board did vote on it and they were four to zero. Um, not negative vote. Councelor Golib. So, this one um thinking about people in my precinct and who has reached out to me about
173this and what people said when I knocked on their doors. This one is actually not that hard. It's hard because of I don't want I feel badly being in a room and I'm going to let a lot of people down. Um but not not the people I talked to in my in my precinct. Um when people uh when people brought up the issue of ADUs and I shared that there would be a special permit required. People were okay with that. When I knocked on doors, people said most of my most of my well, I don't know what the average age of people in my precinct are, but they're older than I am, and they have sons and daughters and children who they want to live in Greenfield, as as do I for my child. And
174I know the first ADU was built in precinct one for someone's daughter. Um, people told me that they want more housing and they want places for their kids to be able to live. Um, and I haven't heard from people telling me that they only wanted it limited. I live in one of the precincts which there probably would be more space for more ADUs if people could afford them. And um, people over profits absolutely um, people who know me know that I don't want corporate America um, encroaching and there isn't evidence of that. I haven't seen evidence of that and um, yeah. And so I will be voting yes on this and I don't feel as conflicted honestly as you saw me being on the other ones. It's pretty clear. Councelor Menhas. So there's a few
175different aspects to this one for for me with a lot of this housing stuff. It really does come down to the quality of life for someone who would be in these ADUs. With one ADU being allowed on one law, I can understand when it's a family member. I can understand that. But when you're allowing multiple ADUs, what you're opening your housing market up to is kind of like this sardine effect where you're just cramming people in. I don't think that it will the majority of Greenfield can actually even afford to have multiple ADUs. I don't even think the majority can have to to build one ADU on their house. Um, but if they want to be able to house someone that's close to them in their home, fine. Absolutely. That's great. But I think all
176this does is open us up to predatory development. Um, and I'm not in favor of that because I I I don't think it's right to just shoot for the bare minimum and say, "Hey, at least we have a roof over somebody's head." I think that person deserves the same honorable life, the same quality of life as anyone else who would have live in a normal development unit. Councelor Haley. Yeah. So, I'm actually in favor of this. Um, and the reason why is is many. Um, I agree we need a lot of housing. I I don't disagree with that one bit, but I also think there's that we have to do it in a responsible manner. Um, when I picture multiple ADUs on one lot, I think of like Haiti, like think very densified housing. Very
177densified. You're talking about you you could potentially have four houses on a oneacre lot, right? Abudding to each other with no green space. Now, I remember going back to when we went through um the cluster development design in EDC, and we all loved that. Why? Why do we love that? What did it do? It preserved open space. What does this not do if we allow multiple ADUs? It limits the amount of open space on a property. And I understand we have zoning ordinances, setback ordinances that are going to restrict this to maybe two ADUs or whatever it may be. I just don't think this is the right way to do it. I think you also look at it as like look at the look at the big picture. What's this do if we have a
17810-in sewer main running down Chapman Street and everybody builds two ADUs? even though it might not be possible like no but you have to think about this Mike and I appreciate you nodding your head but I don't like your manner tonight so please refrain have a little respect um so this puts a hardship on it could put a hardship on our m and who's going to hold that burden where does it stay in state law that if if we have to provide sewer for these houses and now we have to update our sewer main down Main Street um and yeah that could be part of the special permit process I understand I just I came to Greenfield cuz I grew up in Chick. Okay. Chickpe was a very densified community. Um, and I I I
179lived here because I liked the the country feel of Greenfield and I just feel like we're taking away from that and we're doing it because we have to be the leaders and we feel the need to solve everybody's problem here in Greenfield. But like there's tons of land in Deerfield. There's tons of other places people could build housing. Why do we have to be the only community to do it? And that's the end of that. Councelor Brown. Um, I'll be voting no on this because I believe that the special permit process for more than one ADU is adequate and we don't need to restrict it um, preemptively. And partly that's because I think that folks are looking towards more creative solutions and having community um, on one lot. And for example, I just I don't
180know if folks saw it because it happened later today, but there was an email that I'd like to read out um from a voter in precinct 4. Um my family is currently planning to move to a multif family home in Greenfield that will be co-owned with two other families who are close friends. Living living close will allow us to support support each other's child care needs and add shared amenities like a deck that we might not otherwise afford on our own. There is enough space on the land to add two ADUs. We would like to be able to do this not to profit, but to grow our little community and create more affordable housing for others. So, just wanted to put out there that I think that this special permit process is adequate. Councelor Toronto.
181Um yeah, just to say um again restricting something that doesn't need to be restricted seems pointless. Most of the places that are going to be able to build an ADU with our already existing zoning um are few or far between. Uh to something that councelor Hilly did say about like how many places will fit on an acre? Four. Well, guess what? our whole half of our city, there's more than four houses on an acre. The only places that have an acre requirement or close just short of an acre requirement is in the rural residential zone, which you and I both live in. You have a lot of land. I don't. Mine was zoned as essentially what is now the RB district, which is 12,500 square ft of land. I can't build an ADU on my
182lot. I can't fit the setbacks on it. You could probably fit two more houses on your your plot of land. So, the and but you're also going to have to fall under the requirements because you aren't on town sewer to to meet uh uh sewage requirements for having your own private sewer there. Right. So, a lot of this is it's it's a huge straw man issue here probably like nobody in the the the tangible area right around us is going to be able to build an ADU even if they had the money because they don't have the area to build it. So, this is a moot point. It's only going to happen in very select select properties that meet a certain criteria for it. If those people even choose to do it, it's a choice.
183This this fear-mongering that's been spread throughout that all of a sudden we're going to have all these corporate developments is absolutely asinine and ridiculous. No one's doing that. Guess what? We haven't had commercial development coming into town. We're not getting private development coming into town and taking up all of our property with ADUs. It's total It's total fear-mongering. It's [ __ ] Like, let people do what they want to do with their property. Like, that's it. That's bottom line. Like, I can't I can't vote to restrict somebody from wanting to add an in-law whether it's attached or not. I'm certainly not gonna foreshadowing restrict anybody from when we try to mince these terms about what becomes a two and three family within inside the parameters of what's already built and then what you can add on after
184that. Like I can't even put a freaking garage on my property because of my setbacks. Okay. So like and I live in the rural residential area. You think anybody around here is going to be able to build an ADU? No, they can't. They can't fit it. It doesn't work. They're not going to get a simple, not even a special permit. They're not going to get a simple permit to do it. So, it's only going to apply to certain areas, and it's not going to densify anybody who lives down in this area. So, the fear-mongering needs to stop and and the truth needs to be told on what these actualities might be. And limiting things is ridiculous because you're stopping potential from happening in places where it actually could apply and could be helpful. Otherwise, you
185just don't want to be helpful. I think I had counselor mastertoro next then bottomly then Minhos then Gordon. I have to respectfully disagree with councelor Torono um for other reasons. Um the fear fear-mongering and people saying well you know corporate there's no corporate developer developers are not coming in building these that's actually false. It's already happening on Cape Cod. It's happening in Newton. People are p pulling permits. As soon as the word got out, there are developers that are doing this. I know because I looked it into it, Michael. And I'm not going to be, you know, I'm not going to debate it with you. You can have your opinion. I have mine. God, dude, it's not Greenfield. Well, it doesn't matter whether it's Greenfield or not. Um, people are putting ADUs on their propert.
186Okay? You're not allowed to have uh um short-term rentals like uh Airbnbs and ADUs in most locations. So what people are doing is homeowners are giving the ADU to grandma who doesn't exist and renting out their home on weekends or for a couple of weeks um and moving into the ADU and renting their house out as an Airbnb. So, there's ways to get around this stuff, and there's always people who are creative enough to find a way. And as uh councelor Healey said, special permits are as good as whoever's on the planning board and um on the zoning board of appeals. And so, I'm a yes with this. I'm offer 180 on one lot. as a as a right. Um but and I live in town and I have enough room on my lot for
187that to happen and um and so does the neighbor on either side of me. So I wouldn't want to see more than one anywhere near my home. Um so there you have it. I'm a yes on this. Councelor Bottomley. Um, I'll be voting yes on this. Also, uh, I think it's worth pointing out that our decision-making ability was taken away from us by the state. They decided this and se for I don't remember how many on council were here when we had this debate several years ago. Uh but a lot of people came out and spoke and were very upset about the ADU changing regulations back then and people wanted to have owner occupied all these things we put that was all taken away. So what I'm hearing is we were changing this to be
188in compliance with the law. We don't need to do a special permit for more. I think we should do just the change to the law. That's what we have to do. That's what we've been told we have to do because every other aspect it has has been taken away from us in our decision- making. I also don't think this will solve our housing crisis. Uh we've talked about density and building. I don't think this will help. And I the feedback I've gotten from the people I've talked to is change the law because we have to. And I think that's the right thing to do would be to vote for this. Councelor Gordon. So, here's the good news for everyone in favor of this petition. Even if we vote this down, as others have said, I
189would bet you a lot of money that we will not see more than one ADU built on any property in Greenfield. Um, and the reality is that it's unlikely that more than a few ADUs will be built in Greenfield at all. Um, which again is good news if you want to limit ADUs and it's bad news for people who really need more housing options, right? Um, but the fact is that in most places in this country, not many ADUs get built. That is currently true. Um, I talked to a town planner, the the city planner in Belfast, Maine, which has had allowed ADUs by right for 8 years. And you know how many ADUs have been built in eight years in Belfast Maine? Five. And that is a place with very, you know, the real
190estate's in very high demand. Uh, mo their average lot size is much bigger than Greenfield. So, um, you know, in theory, they could easily have multiple ADUs being built on all of these lots if that were, you know, as significant as an issue as we're being told that it is. Um, and you know, the we are being we're hearing these scary stories about big developers swooping in. Um, and predatory home buyers are absolutely real. I don't think anyone here disagrees with that. Um, and we all agree that we don't want absentee landlords and and corporations buying up single family properties, but that is actually a separate issue from what we're talking about here. Um, because, you know, predatory investors buying a property is different from them buying a property and building ADUs on it. And,
191you know, the latter may may be a problem that exists in San Diego or apparently in in Cape Cod or Newton. Um, but we are not San Diego or Cape Cod or Newton, which I think we're all happy about. That's why we live in Greenfield. Um, and I do feel confident when I say that partly because I have done a lot of homework, a lot of I've talked to a lot of people over the last few months about this issue. Um, I've talked to housing experts. I've talked to planners. Um, I've asked the petitioners to send me the evidence that they have of the the problems that they're concerned about. And there isn't any. I haven't seen any um I've been, you know, called some names in those emails, but I haven't been given any
192information that these things actually are happening because there's just no evidence here or around most of the country that predatory investors are building lots of ADUs on single family lots. Um, and I looked into the San Diego thing, I will say, because I wanted to understand what was happening there and if it could happen here. And the answer is no. We don't have the same development challenges. We don't have the same population challenges as San Diego does. In a lot of ways, ours are exactly the opposite of San Diego. Um, we're not possibly going to have 12 ADUs proposed in one backyard in Greenfield. Um, first of all, because that would be insanely expensive, and there's no way the planning board would issue special permits for all of that. Um, but no one here is
193proposing the kind of bonus ADU program or, you know, removing parking or setback requirements or any of those things um that they have in San Diego. And here's the thing about San Diego. There was a loophole in their ADU law. That is that is absolutely true. And this week, right now, they are updating that law and they are closing the loophole because that is a thing you can do when you identify a problem. Um, and you know, if ADUs were to cause problems here, we could stop them. We could update the law. But one ad the one ADU per lot rule right now is I agree with the person who said it's a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist. So, we don't have those loopholes in the first place in the law
194here. Um, but what we do have is a dire lack of housing. And if even a couple of property owners want to put in the time and the money to get the building permits and the special permits and everything else to build two ADUs instead of one on their property, I want those extra housing units to exist in Greenfield because even if it's just a couple of them, it matters to the people who will be able to live in them. Um, and sorry, I'm just going to say one one more thing because if we think that we have a housing crisis now, just wait y'all. Like, if we see these big cuts in Social Security and Medicaid and housing programs and veterans programs and all of that that's being promised right now, it's going to
195be so much worse than it is right now. And, you know, we don't know what the future holds. It's absolutely true. But we can and I think that it's our job to make some educated guesses um and to to plan for that so that we're not caught flat-footed um but you know 40% of people over 65 um get more than half their income from social security. Medicaid pays for 60 over 60% of people in nursing homes in this country. And 5 years ago, there was a big study that came out that said that homelessness for people over 65 was going to triple by 2030. And that was before the pandemic. That was before all of these cuts were suggested, you know. So, we're going to need a lot more options for elders, for ADA accessibility,
196um options for smaller homes, ways for people to live near their family, you know, who can help with their care. We I believe we need every tool available to us. um because that's what's happening whether we whether we like it or not. And you know, right now I think we get to choose how to respond and manage um change because the change is coming either way. And you know, do we want to see a lot more unhoused people in Greenfield? Do we want to see more people living in tents that are getting flooded out or where they're, you know, trying not to freeze to death through the winter? Um you know, if we don't, then we need more housing. And at the very least, I think we need to not put these sort of artificial
197limits in place to restrict the possibility of a few more units being built out of fear of of unintended consequences that are that are extremely unlikely to happen. Um, so I absolutely support oversight um and regulations. I will be happy to work with anyone who wants to address how, you know, how do we limit predatory absentee investors and landlords in Greenfield. Um, but I can't support this petition because I think, you know, it's our job to vote for uh it's not our job to vote for fear. It's our job to vote for solutions to real problems that we're facing. Councelor Garrett, I think councelor Gordon was very articulate and put that all well and I don't really want to take up much more of our time knowing especially it's growing late. The only thing I
198just wanted to mention, we have already passed an ADU ordinance change. And in that ordinance change, we ban short-term rentals. And that's effectively Airbnbs. So, if you're concerned about corporate landlords coming in and finding an investment property, we're going to make a quick buck. We are too, which is why we just voted to ban Airbnbs in ADUs because that is a vector by which somebody could basically take a unit of housing and turn it into some profit center. The secondary piece of that is the reason places like Cape Cod and Newton and New York and Los Angeles and Boston and Belfast, Maine are having these predatory lenders coming in is because it's an attractive market. And it's an attractive market because there's not enough housing for the people that want to live there. It's very
199simple. You have a place that people want to live, the cost of housing goes up. If there's not enough places for them to go, it's going to go up even higher. It's basic economics as far as supply and demand is concerned. I absolutely do not want just a wild less capitalist situation where we have no rules whatsoever. So just on that note, we do have rules and they're the 40% open space requirement. No one's being crammed in like sardines because you require 40% open space in the entire city as far as I'm aware. Um that is not changing. So when we look at our zoning code, it's actually really intelligently designed and this is not going to solve a problem. It's just going to prevent solutions as others have said more articulately than I have.
200So I'm also a no vote on this. Councelor Bullock and then we'll come back to you councelor Mas. Yeah, there's a couple things I want to address. One is that um this a ne a neighbor in my precinct initially when this came down from the executive office of housing and livable communities did some projections. He's been in housing his whole career basically. Um the math on the state's projections were that there would be 8,000 ADUs built over 5 years. Um which when we met with the executive office they confirmed. Um and so based on green fields lot sizes for that were available um and population size and housing need. The estimate is that we would potentially at most see four ADUs a year 19 total over five years. That was a the highest projection. One
201of the reasons is because the return on investment isn't high on ADUs, right? I looked at into building an ADU for a family member and it wasn't worth it. I bought a home for them to live in instead. And so and and I'm married to a contractor and it wasn't the investment the return on on investment wasn't going to be worth worth it. And so um you know there's there's that there this just to like assage the fears around this. The other thing I want to just bring up is like there's a lot of coded language that happens when we talk about these things. And so like Derek, you we said the thing about Haiti, right? Like you've envisioned Haiti. Like the reason we have those visuals to something is because like that's telling a
202story about a people and a place, but if you look at a Google Earth image of Haiti, like it's not overrun with houses. It's not, right? It's it's it's actually like beautiful and like you know uh rainforest and jungle and so there's stories that we tell ourselves the same thing about having neighbors that cook food that we don't like the smell of. These are all all coded things that are used to divide us from each other. And so it's like once again changing like what we can't what we're willing to accept and as our um as who belongs and how people belong in our communities. The last thing I want to say is that um councelor Brown said something about, you know, people want you, you read the the letter from the constituent who wanted
203to live with friends and family and councelor Gordon addressed this as well that we have um we're going to hit this this ceiling where we have people that are elderly and homeless. And we see that now. We see that now in who's on our streets currently in Greenfield and we are going to see that more and there is a real economic problem that we in this room cannot fix where people of my age can't save enough for retirement to live the way that our parents and grandparents are living that we're often taking care of as well. And so we, some of us, a few of us are thinking creatively about how we can live. And like if I would be so lucky to live on a piece of land with four of my friends as
204I age in place instead of living in a nursing home like my grandmother is because we couldn't move her into an ADU on my property because we couldn't afford to build one. And so I think that what we have to think of, and I multiple people have said this, is the positive. Like if someone in Greenfield can build two homes on their land that's an acre and a half, which is very few parcels that exist so that them and their friends can live together and lower the cost of child care to live in this current economy. Like I Yes. Once again, yes. And when I start to see one corporate developer in Greenfield, one, I will have a concern. But there is still is not one corporate developer in Greenfield. Councelor Menhus. So, I want
205to agree with councelor Mosaro there. Um, just because we aren't run over by largecale developers right now doesn't mean that in five years we won't or 10 years we won't. When I first came across adus, one of my first exposures was this like investor bro on YouTube, which was just so cringe. But he was basically talking about flipping properties. You buy up a property, shabby little place, and you have one rental income coming in and then [ __ ] you can have more ADUs, you can have more rental incomes coming in. Why wouldn't you do that rather than having to buy a whole another house? So that clicked with me and I was like, I don't think the average person can afford to do that. I don't think the average person in Greenfield can afford to do
206that. Who would be able to do that? That would be someone who's an absentee landlord. If the whole point is to house people who are in our family and to to to have them age in place, why isn't the law requiring owner occupied? it just it just doesn't make sense to me. So, that's why I'll be voting yes. I just want to comment that um I spoke with planning committee earlier today because I'm trying to wrap my head around everything and one thing that they mentioned that really stuck with me is in Greenfield very different than other communities. We allow um two family, three family, single family in the same areas. And so we've had progressive zoning for a very long time. And by doing the one ADU to one lot, we're we're actually going
207backwards on our mixed development. Um, which which allows us to have neighbors of different incomes together, which just makes better communities. You know, I I I've lived in communities where people use zoning to to keep people you don't like out. Um, and two summers ago, um, I had the opportunity to stay in somebody's mother-in-law ADU, um, behind their house because I needed somewhere to live for the summer. And I thank goodness that that was there and that they had their parent who was there was had moved here from Minnesota um, was on vacation that summer. And I know the neighbors were skeptical because I talked to my friend um about this unit going in. Uh and now everybody's fine with it. And I know that's just one ADU, but they wouldn't have been able to
208fit another one. So I think we're also getting worried about that there's going to be five in somebody's backyard. I know my I I mean I'll have to move my trampoline, but once the trampoline's gone, um I think I can only fit one ADU. So, I think the special permit process um allows us to make sure and all the setbacks that we're not going to be sardines. So, I'm going to be voting no on this as well. Any additional conversation? I think we're ready. Councelor Goolan. No. Councelor Gordon, no. Councelor Master Tataro, yes. Councelor Botmley, yes. Councelor Bullock, no. Councelor Perry, yes. Councelor Healey, yes. Councelor Brown, no. Vice President Garrett, no. Councelor Vinhus, yes. Councelor Tozo, not a chance. Does the president wish to vote? Yes and no. The motion fails. All right. Order
209number FY25-080. The city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 section 200-56 accessory dwelling units subsection D accessory dwelling unit standards paragraph 2 by adding the following language section 200-56 accessory dwelling units is hereby further amended in subsection D accessory dwelling units standard subp part two by adding at the end thereof of the following new language an ADU created within a principal dwelling unit shall be considered considered 1 ADU on a lot for the purpose of this section and further amends that the table of contents and index of the code and further that nonsubstantiative changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of of the city of Greenfield 2/3
210vote required nine. That last paragraph gets harder and harder as the night gets on. Second. And what were the results? Uh again, EDC didn't vote on this cuz the planning board, but again, the planning board was uh four to zero negative. Any discussion? I see none. Let's move to a vote. Councelor Goolum, no. Councelor Gordon, no. Councelor Master Tataro, no. Councelor Bottomley, abstain. Councelor Bullock, no. Councelor Perry, yes. Councelor Healey, yes. Councelor Brown, no. Vice President Garrett, no. Councelor Minhos, yes. Councelor Torono, negative. Does the president wish to vote? Yes and no. The motion was defeated. It did not pass. Order number FY25-081. The city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amend the zoning ordinance chapter 200 section 200-56 accessory dwelling units subsection D accessory dwelling unit standards by
211adding new paragraphs 11 as follows. Section 200-56 Accessory dwelling units is hereby further amended in subsection D accessory dwelling unit standards by adding after subp part 10 the following new sub part 11 11 in order to enable development of housing units for low-income individuals. The Greenfield Housing Authority shall provide deed restrictive rental housing vouchers to the extent that are available to low-inccome housing households that limits their share of rental costs not to exceed 30% of their income as determined by the Greenfield Housing Authority and further amends that the tables of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantiative changes to the numbering of the ordinance be permitted in order that be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield. two/3 vote required which would be nine and
212again oh do we have a second oh second and again uh EDC didn't uh vote on this but planning board didn't it was a a four to zero negative discussion councelor Gordon yeah I'll just say I I appreciate the intention behind this um you know we we all want folks to be able to afford housing And we and I'm glad to hear that that we all agree that we want ways to support people who need help affording housing. Um I I will be voting no on this just because I don't think that it is the the place of this council or a citizens petition to tell the Greenfield Housing Authority how to operate or how to distribute their funds. Um and I think that there is no chance that they're going to have any available
213extra vouchers anytime soon. Um, councelor Menhus, I'm going to vote in favor of this because I support the spirit of this. I think the idea when we're talking about housing is creating housing for low-income folks. And if this is just a little bit of help that would ensure that this is specifically for low-income folks, um, I'm on board for that. All right. I see no further hand, so we can move it to a vote. Councelor Goolan, no. Councelor Gordon, no. Council Master Tataro. Yes. I'm sorry I didn't quite catch that. Yes. Thank you. Councelor Bottomley. Yes. Councelor Bulock. No. Councelor Perry. Yes. Councelor Healey. No. Councelor Brown. No. Vice President Garrett? No. Councelor Minhos? Yes. Councelor Toronto? Nope. Does the president wish to vote? Yes and no. The motion fails. [Music] Order number FY25-082. The
214city council moved that it be ordered that the city council of Greenfield amends the zoning ordinance chapter 200 section 200-56 Accessory Dwelling Unit subsection C applicability paragraph 2 by adding new language as follows. Section 2-56 accessory dwelling units is hereby further amended in subsection C applicability by adding the the end of subp part two to the following new language. Any ADU on a lot which is not protected use ADU as defined in section 200-56B of this ordinance shall be subject to special permit pursuant to 760 CMR 71.03 number five for the use of land or structure for the additional ADUs. Any ADUs which require special permit shall require site plan review by the planning board prior to construction pursuant to 200-8.48 number one of this ordinance and in conformance with 760 CMR 7103 3B5 and
215further amends that the table of contents and index of the code and further that non-substantive changes to the numbering of this ordinance be permitted in order that it be in compliance with the numbering format of the code of the city of Greenfield. Twothirds vote required. Second. All right. Again, EDC did not vote on this in their meeting um because we wanted to watch the planning board meeting and it was a planning board was a four to zero negative uh vote on this as well. Um I councelor Healey. Yeah. So, I I actually can really appreciate this one. Um I know that the special permit process is listed and Thank you. um vice president for bringing this because this does help show what a special permit requires and nowhere in that documentation does it say a
216site plan review. Um I I do think a site plan review in a multiple ADU situation is important because it deals with traffic impacts. It deals with other things that might affect the community. Um, so my personal opinion is that this should be a favorable vote on our end just because um, it allows it allows somebody to do a peer review on the site plans for this project to make sure that they're um, dealing with storm water and any other things on the property accordingly. Council Gordon. Um I certainly agree that, you know, we want to make sure that um we're being careful about citing these things and and making sure that they're not going to get flooded out in a storm, etc. Um my understanding from uh George Tulum sits on the planning board
217is that a site plan review is part of the special permit process. I think um in I don't remember the which recording of which meeting it was but I believe councelor Healey that that you asked him that and he said yes. I don't know I don't remember exactly if that was you. Um and I will say yeah I am a little confused by this although I will it is helpful to see where special permits are laid out in the code but I looked into the process I read through the whole special permit process on the Greenfield City website and there it does say that a site plan review is required. So, um, my understanding is that this is already the law. Council Garrett, I, um, I was also under the impression that a site plan
218review would be required for a special permit. There's two sections in the code where special permits are mentioned under the ZBA, which I did not print out. And so, that could be where that's located. I um my comment was going to be I'm in support of this amendment, but I don't think we need to do it because it's already in what we passed based on that special permit authority. If we find out in this meeting that a site plan review isn't part of a special permit, I might change my vote, but otherwise I'm a no vote. So, I do support the ideas in this, but I think we've already done them. But, you know, if anyone wants to quickly Gordon, I just want to add one thing to to what I said. I think the
219difference here is that the criteria for approval are in is in here, but what's not in here is what you have to submit in order to obtain approval because I remember looking through it on the website and at minimum there was 36 things that you had to submit as part of a application for a special permit and site plan review is one of them. So that's that's why it's not in here, but I believe it is in the in the code. Councelor Perry, because this is our last vote and we're coming to a close. I just want to thank the citizens who put the petition together and sent it in. I want to thank everybody who wrote to the council on both sides of the argument of all sides of the argument. Your voices were
220heard on all sides. It made me think a lot about what we wanted to do. Uh this was a tough night because all things considered this the deck was stacked with the uh rulings of the twoth3 votes and that sort of stuff. It it just you know but you did a a great job of presenting your case and letting the public know all sides of arguments. I want to thank you for that. Councelor Garrett, I found it accidentally in our packet on page 25. Site plan review and approval. Projects requiring site plans. All uses number one is all uses requiring a special permit. So we have it here. Councelor Mos. Um, yeah, I support this. I'm So, this is in the law already. Okay. Okay. Um, I'll still vote yes for this though. Colum, is
221there harm in voting yes and creating redundancy? I I want to make sure that there is a site plan review and I is there any harm in in voting yes even though I see it written here? Uh councelor Healey I if it's already written elsewhere and you know we put it in a second place and it's duplicated. It's not going to harm anything. It's already in there and at least at least you know they get one out of four and everybody's a winner, right? Like I feel better going home tonight. So that's my only argument is can we give him a win please? I don't think I see any other hands that I think that's a mustache twirl. How would you know? We've seen it enough times. All right, let's go for a vote here.
222Councelor Golib, yes. Councelor Gordon, no. Councelor Master Tara, yes. Councelor Bottomley, yes. Councelor Bullock, no. Councelor Perry, yes. Councelor Healey, yes. Councelor Brown, no. Vice President Garrett, no. Councelor Minhas, yes. Councelor Toonzo, no. Does the president wish to vote? Yes. And yes. The motion received seven seven yes votes and required nine to pass. So, it failed. Are we at the end? Yep. Okay. I'll take a motion to adjurnn from someone. Moved. All right. All in favor? Great. Good night. Thank you. Thank you everyone for your spirited debate. [Music]