GREENFIELD — Following a three-and-a-half-hour meeting Thursday night, the Zoning Board of Appeals voted unanimously to continue a public hearing on a special permit for Noble Home LLC, which has proposed building 22 condominiums divided into multi-family homes on Stone Farm Lane.
City Hall’s second-floor meeting room was packed as more than 20 residents aired their views on the proposed development. Since Noble Home plans to construct multi-family housing across Rural Residential and Urban Residential zones, and offers only 50 of the 100 feet of frontage needed, the project requires a special permit.
“[The applicant] is saying, ‘Well, we had four units there when it required 50 [feet of frontage]. We’re asking if we could put 22 units on the property and extend this existing non-conformity that we were lucky enough to have,'” ZBA Chair David Singer said. “The test for that is if the Board of Appeals finds that such extension, alteration or change will not be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing non-conforming use.”
Valley Community Land Trust, a regional nonprofit that purchases and leases land for conservation and affordable housing, bought the land on Stone Farm Lane for about $995,000 last summer before leasing portions to Noble Home, an architectural design firm from Shelburne Falls, and the Valley Housing Co-op for development.
Preceding a lengthy public comment period, Noble Home owner Noah Grunberg presented the board with a thorough overview of the proposed development, explaining that the plans include sufficient parking spaces, emergency egress and stormwater management infrastructure.
“We’re making up for past sins here by collecting rainwater from our neighbors, bringing it down through this channel, down the hill to an existing gravel pit right here,” Grunberg said, explaining the site’s stormwater management plan. “This gravel pit is going to take all that water and everything, clean it and deposit it back into the ground. The only time there will be any overflow is potentially in a 100-year storm, and any overflow will be caught again by another catch basin.”
Grunberg explained that in an effort to preserve the area’s wildlife and natural beauty, the development will be primarily clustered into one area and will not impede upon nearby nature trails. He added that Noble Home will also install and maintain a sewage pump station and use city sewer services, rather than a septic system, to avoid runoff into the Connecticut River in the event of a septic failure.
When ZBA member Debra Gilkes read letters from various city departments explaining their views on the proposal, she noted that the Fire Department requested that the site include a turnaround area for emergency vehicles.
Gilkes also read an Order of Conditions from the Conservation Commission, which voted unanimously to approve the project last week. The order stated that, “Based on the submitted traffic impact statement, proposed multi-family development will have a minimal impact on the surrounding street network.”
While those in support of the project claimed it would feed the city’s need for housing and improve upon the two duplexes that already sit on the land, a group of local residents opposing the project who refer to themselves as the “Sunrise Ave Coalition” are concerned that it will have a detrimental impact on wildlife, public infrastructure and the overall character of the neighborhood.
“I have seen sewer main fails, water line fails and asphalt unnecessarily changed. … The cluster housing of 22 dwellings of Stone Farm Lane would increase our homes by over 50%, making it a significant adverse impact on adjacent properties, the neighborhood, the city and home values,” coalition leader Beth Lorenz said. “Multi-family is out of character with the small, single-family homes and would adversely impact the infrastructure that is [in need of] immediate repair. The development should be treated as a major development project, if only to ensure the water and sewer does not have significant adverse impact.”
About half of those who spoke about the proposed development voiced their support for housing in the area, such as Stone Farm Lane resident Adelaide Petrov-Yoo, who argued that it would bring a positive change to the neighborhood’s water and sewer infrastructure, serve a need for housing and possibly increase property values.
“A lot of the arguments we heard today so far have been around the idea that, currently, the neighborhood around Sunrise Avenue is this idyllic, great place, and any change will be bad. I want to counter with the idea that what’s currently going on is not ideal, and that the changes that Noble Home is proposing actually could be improvements,” Petrov-Yoo said. “Already, the [infrastructure] situation is not that great. If we put in new infrastructure with updated technologies that weren’t made almost 100 years ago, I think that that could be an improvement. … This development creates a hospitable environment in Greenfield for people who are trying to move in, who are trying to be part of the workforce, part of your tax base and part of the community.”
Singer said he planned to continue the meeting until next month, or until after the ZBA had the time to schedule a public tour of the proposed development.
