GREENFIELD — The Planning Board voted this week to initiate the process of amending a zoning bylaw related to shelter facilities.
Planning Director Ella Wise had been tasked with examining the matter, and at Thursday’s meeting, she suggested amending a section of the city’s zoning bylaws to include a definition of a housing shelter, the number of parking spaces allowed per bed and a site plan review requirement.
The suggested definition of a housing shelter is “a facility or building that provides temporary sleeping accommodations or refuge, typically in a shared or congregate living arrangement, for individuals or families experiencing short- or long-term homelessness.”
Shelters could offer accessory services such as meals, counseling, case management or medical screenings. One parking space for every 10 beds would be required.
Wise noted in a phone interview on Friday that the suggested bylaw revisions will be the subject of a public hearing that has not yet been scheduled.
A service center and 36-studio apartment complex to house chronically homeless individuals is slated for completion at 60 Wells St. this summer by Clinical & Support Options (CSO). The Planning Board has also approved extending the special permit that allows CSO to use a portion of its second-floor office space at 1 Arch Place as a temporary shelter and housing resource center while the 60 Wells St. housing is under construction.
Planning Board member Victor Moschella voiced some concerns.
“There’s no guarantee that that [temporary shelter at 1 Arch Place] will close when Wells Street opens,” he said.
Alternate Erica Rioux Gees said some common concerns about shelters, such as people smoking outdoors, can be addressed. But Moschella said his primary concern is increasing Greenfield’s homeless population with the shelters’ presence.
“What are we doing to our town’s demographics by continuing to bring more and more homeless, poor, indigent — whatever word you want to use — into our town?” Moschella asked. “Is that the direction we want our town to be going in?”
Alternate Tom Bledsoe, who attended the meeting remotely, told Moschella he understands the concern. However, he added that working-class people in local industries make up a large percentage of Greenfield residents who are living in subsidized housing.
To this point, Vice Chair George Touloumtzis said Greenfield is the county seat and, as a result, has a natural concentration of human services and need.
“And I think that we, as a Planning Board, are serving all of the folks here … in this community,” he said.
Resilient river corridor management
In other business, Andrea Donlon, a senior land use and natural resources planner with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG), delivered a presentation on resilient river corridor management.
She said FRCOG completed an assessment of nonpoint source pollution — or pollution that does not originate from a single source, like trash entering rivers and streams through stormwater runoff — of the Deerfield River Watershed in 2008. The assessment also identified significant bank erosion in tributary watersheds — the North, Chickley, Green and South rivers. She explained that bank erosion leads to damaged infrastructure, loss of prime agricultural land and habitat impacts.
Donlon mentioned that Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 resulted in a greater than 500-year flood event in the Green River. This, she continued, caused major damage to Greenfield’s water supply dam abutment, the Eunice Williams Bridge, the sewer line below Route 2A and more. FRCOG has sought a sustainable approach to river and watershed management that reduces conflicts between the river and the built environment, and that protects/restores the river system.
As they are dynamic systems, Donlon said when rivers have access to floodplains and follow a meandering course, high flows are dissipated, and sediment is eroded and deposited in a “dynamic equilibrium” condition. A river corridor includes the active river channel and a portion of floodplain or riparian area where the river is expected to move over time. She explained river corridors can be managed through bank stabilization projects, implementing restoration projects that address identified problems and restore key river functions, and by removing or relocating structures that are threatened by fluvial erosion hazards.
