On January 2017, Greenfield City Councilors Isaac Mass and Penny Ricketts made a motion to table a zoning amendment they had been pushing that would have destroyed almost all of the French King Corridor Overlay District. The minutes of that night’s City Council meeting stated that “Councilor Renaud requested the record reflect that she received more emails against the proposal than for the proposal.” Rudy Renaud voted against the plan to shrink the French King overlay.
In March 2019, a little over two years later, President Renaud proposed a trade with Councilor Mass: you vote for a new library, I will vote for the elimination of the French King District. The plan was quickly referred to the Planning Board, which voted on March 18 by 4-1 to send a “negative recommendation” on the proposed changes to the Corridor overlay district. Seven days later, on March 20, the council voted to kill the French King zone.
Before the council destroyed the zone, I went door knocking to meet land owners on Canada Hill, Wunsch Road, Stone Ridge Lane, French King Highway, Turners Falls Road, and Gill Road. These landowners were opposed to the removal of the Overlay. They submitted a petition to the council, forcing a three-quarters super-majority vote.
A total of 162.75 acres, affecting 79 property owners, was removed from the protections of the Overlay. That’s the size of 123 football fields. Yet 10 councilors voted to kill the French King district — in order to “save” the library. Within weeks, a library referendum broke the zoning-for-library deal.
On May 6, I sent a letter to all city councilors asking them to take the French King issue back to the Planning Board for new hearings.
On June 18, I emailed President Renaud directly asking her to “urge the City Council of its own motion to place to the two zoning votes from March 20 on the November ballot for voters to decide.” That gave the council three months to put the French King on the ballot.
On July 9, I sent a letter to the City Council asking them again to put the French King and Major Development review on the ballot.
On Aug. 17, I send a petition to the City Council which requested they ”submit to the voters of Greenfield … a question on the November ballot regarding whether or not to rescind the zoning votes.” I waited until 11 p.m. on the night of Aug. 21 for the council to take up my petition, but Councilor Ricketts said it was too late to take up any new item of business, despite the fact that “petitions” were listed on the council’s agenda.
On Sept. 18, I testified, along with about nine others, that the council should put the French King on the ballot and let the voters decide the fate of the French King. Around 10:30 p.m., Councilor Mass moved to adjourn the meeting without taking up the French King. The meeting was not adjourned, but Councilor Tim Dolan then moved that the French King be put on the ballot as a non-binding vote — which no one testifying had asked him to do. In the end, the council punted the issue until Oct. 16 knowing that for any proposal to appear on the Nov. 5 ballot it must be in the City Clerk’s hands by Oct. 1. The council deliberately ran out the clock for a French King plebiscite. I gave them three months advance notice, plenty of time to meet all deadlines.
After four separate efforts to get the City Council to give the voters of Greenfield a say on the French King, I accepted that some members of the council did not want to hear from the voters — even though it cost nothing to put the issue on the ballot. One councilor successfully used the library issue to accomplish his zoning goal.
But the French King is physically too big an issue to bury — and with all the talk about Climate Justice, I remain confident that Greenfield will not support the construction of more fossil fuel gas stations and chain restaurants with large asphalt parking lots. Greenfield will choose a “green entryway” over plans that continue to hollow out our downtown. They should do this for the people of Greenfield not because I asked them to do it repeatedly.
Al Norman has been a
land use activist based in
Greenfield for more than 25 years.