The Greenfield City Council has a choice to make tonight: take care of three important postponed items of business — or kick the can further down the road:
1. Citizen Initiatives: Seven months ago, voters went to the polls and adopted a referendum process that allows citizens to challenge a City Council vote by gathering 326 signatures. But the related issue of Citizen Initiatives, in which voters petition for a new idea, has not yet been put on the ballot. The Council’s Ordinance Committee has stalled the issue for months. Several months ago, Ordinances sent the City Council a “no change” plan that required voters to gather 977 signatures in a two-step process that stretches out over a year. Under public pressure, the Council sent the Initiatives issue back to Ordinances for further workup, and on June 8 a compromise motion was on the Ordinances agenda. The compromise reduced the number of signatures to 651, and streamlined the signature gathering steps from two to one. But Ordinances did not even discuss the motion. Tonight, the City Council can take up the compromise motion under new business, and approve a middle ground. Or, it can do nothing, and kick the can down the road.
2. Home Equity Theft: Massachusetts is one of only 12 states that allows cities and towns to “take title” to a homeowner’s property for delinquent taxes. If the property is sold, the city keeps all the homeowner’s equity which in some cases is much higher than the taxes owed. Two months ago, I wrote about a Greenfield couple who had paid off their mortgage, yet almost lost all their home equity due to back taxes. The Council can renounce this equity theft law (Chapter 60, s 53 of the Mass. General Laws) and, on a wholly voluntary basis, return to the ex-homeowner any equity above all taxes, interest, and collection costs due. The Council should ask the mayor to produce an annual report on “tax title” takings in Greenfield, and design a notification process that warns homeowners–in plain English–of the consequences of non-payment of taxes. The city should emphasize repayment plans for any taxpayers who fall behind in their payments. The Council can also ask our state legislative delegation to pass H. 3053, which would end the home equity theft process in Massachusetts. The Council tonight can end Home Equity Theft. Or, it can do nothing, and kick the can again.
3. Marijuana Outdoor Cultivation: In March of 2021, the City Council voted to remove the size limit of 5,000 square feet on outdoor marijuana cultivations in Greenfield’s zoning ordinance. That size cap had been in our zoning since June of 2018. Ten months after the cap was removed, the Mayor signed a Host Agency Agreement with three out-of-state developers to cultivate 300,000 square feet (7 acres) of outdoor marijuana in the Country Club Road neighborhood. The neighbors first heard of this plan one month later. They began circulating a petition to place a moratorium on outdoor cultivations. A list of 403 marijuana licenses approved by the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission shows only 16 outdoor cultivation plans across the state. The proposed Greenfield cultivation is three times larger than any approved cultivation — and is 2nd only to a 400,000 square foot growth in Heath, proposed by three Michigan corporations. The Greenfield Council should first reimpose the Tier 1 (5,000 s.f.) dimensional limit on outdoor cultivations that it adopted in June of 2018, and pass a limit of 15,000 s.f. on the total for all licenses on a single property — so no neighborhood in Greenfield has to contend with this huge nuisance. Our zoning ordinance already limits the number of marijuana retailers to 8, limits the number of marijuana delivery operators to 4, and limits the number of licenses for retailers to 8. Other cities, like Pittsfield, have banned outdoor cannabis cultivation altogether. These out-of-state developers have convinced city officials that because they were not a subdivision, they had a ‘freeze’ that exempted them from any future zoning change for 3 years. But court rulings say as long as “use of the land” has not changed, a dimensional limit on the size of cultivation will affect the developers. A size limit is a reasonable way to protect all rural residential neighborhoods—beginning with Country Club Road. Or, the Council can do nothing, and kick the cannabis down the road.
The Council meets tonight at 6:30 pm at the John Zon Center. This legislative can-kicking needs to stop.
Al Norman’s Pushback column appears every third Wednesday of the month. Comments on this column can be emailed to info@sprawl-busters.com.