In the past, Greenfield has been criticized for making hasty land use deals that were not always clearly thought through. The mistakes made recently in sequencing the demolition of our old fire station, and the development of a new fire station, for example, led to the need for a temporary fire station, which cost an unanticipated $3 million to build and then dismantle, and shutting down an operating parking lot that was generating a fair amount of revenue for the city.

Residents were promised that if the Hope Street parking lot could be used temporarily as the home for a makeshift fire station, that the lot would be returned to use as a parking lot. But in the passage of time, that promise was buried. 

When our City Council refused to hear the frustrated Hope Street neighbors who said they acquiesced to support the temporary fire station because they were promised that the parking area would be restored — a referendum petition drive was started which gathered 856 signatures in a matter of less than two weeks — double the amount of signatures required in our charter.

The City Council could have offered to come up with a compromise that restored enough parking to get the cars parked on residential streets back onto the Hope Street lot, but in July of 2025 the council passed a measure which you will read when you go into the ballot box to vote this Nov. 4. “The Greenfield city council authorizes the Mayor to sell 53 Hope Street pursuant to the city council policy for the sale of city owned land, and authorize the mayor to execute all documents  necessary to accomplish the same.”

The word “housing” does not appear anywhere in the motion which was passed! The City Council authorized the mayor to sell a piece of land in our Central Commercial zone. We are sure they thought this land would be used for housing. But this zone allows for 36 different kinds of uses, the second of which is for a “municipal or commercial parking lot or garage.” In 2025, a “multi-family dwelling” was added to the list of uses allowed in our Central Commercial  district, but the mayor is free to sell this property for use as a hotel, a funeral home, wholesale laundry, a car dealership, or a marijuana testing lab, all of which are permitted by special permit. 

No one knows how negotiations with developers will go, or what kind of price those negotiations will yield. The city last year sold a property assessed at $642,000 for $10,000. This open-ended Hope Street measure is flawed, and should be reset to be very specific about what uses can be accepted by the mayor.

This poorly drafted measure got us thinking: what else do we not know about this land deal?  None of us has seen the request for proposals. Why? Isn’t that a key document that will set the parameters of this sale? We assume it’s been written, since the council voted to sell the land three months ago. Why didn’t the council insist on seeing, and possibly editing, that document before they voted to authorize the sale?  

The mayor has said the cheapest way to build housing is up.  How many stories will this apartment building have? Will they be luxury condos? How many one, two or three bedroom units, and at what price? Will they be sold as condos? How much parking will be set aside for the people who buy an apartment? What if it’s sold to a non-profit developer, or a non-profit realty company? Why hasn’t the city showed us any images of the type of building they will show a developer? 

We have heard people complain that the City Council moved too hastily to get this measure to the mayor, aware that there was very vocal opposition to selling the lot in the first place, and changing its use dramatically. 

All the unknowns about this project concern us more than the few details we actually know about the sale itself. We are voting “Yes” on Question 1 to send it back for more due diligence.

Joan Marie Jackson and Mitchell Speight live in Greenfield.