There is a big difference between publicly owned and privately owned parking lots in Greenfield. Home Depot has a huge privately owned parking area that is valued at $3,919,200. They pay $76,659 in taxes this fiscal year to Greenfield for their land area.
The Hope Street parking lot was estimated to generate $200,000 in parking fees when it was last in use several years ago. What sense does it make to build housing on top of revenue-generating land we own?
Even if Hope Street was earning only half of this revenue estimate, it produces more for the city than Home Depot’s parking does in property tax. Any housing you build on the Hope Street lot you have to net out what would have been collected in parking revenue.
The Justice Center has many more visitors than the old courthouse. The YMCA needs more space for its expansion plans. The old Cartelli building will be reused, the old Recorder building is looking for new tenants, the DMH parking is limited, and the new Armory owner reportedly seeks to create a few housing units, and needs some parking for his tenants.
That Hope Street commercial square has a lot of car activity, and the neighbors have lots of cars parking all day on their streets. With all the other vacant and under-utilized property we have, why did we say this Hope Street parking was surplus? One person’s surplus is another person’s daily parking spot.
James Saucier
Greenfield