Franklin County towns are scrambling to write updated accessory dwelling unit (ADU) zoning bylaws. Actually, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has written our bylaws for us, based on stifling state mandates.

Prussia’s “Iron Chancellor” Otto Von Bismarck reportedly said: “Laws are like sausages. It is best not to see them being made.” Several months ago, 105 Greenfield voters submitted a petition to the city for a proposed zoning amendment to our ADU ordinance. Their petition called for a minimum lot size for an ADU of half an acre — 21,780 square feet — plus an increase in open space for a lot with two houses on it.

In Greenfield, the minimum lot size for a two-family house varies from 10,000 square feet in the urban residential zone, to 50,000 square feet in the rural residential zone, a minimum lot twice the required recommendation in the citizens petition.

The Greenfield assessors told me there are 5,525 residential parcels in Greenfield, of which 4,050 (73%) are under a half-acre. If I had lowered the minimum lot size to a quarter-acre, it wouldn’t have mattered. The concept of a lot too small for an ADU got jammed in the sausage grinding machine. Lot size became moot when Healey’s administration issued a final set of ADU regulations: “A Municipality may not require a minimum Lot size for a Protected Use ADU.” The Iron Chancellor would be very pleased.

Yet neighboring states are giving local communities more flexibility with backyard houses. According to a Rhode Island State House press release, their 2024 ADU law “provides homeowners statewide the right to develop a single ADU on an owner-occupied property to accommodate a disabled family member, or within the existing footprint of their structures or on any lot larger than 20,000 square feet.” The lot size for the Greenfield citizens ADU petition was almost identical: 21,780 square feet.

Rhode Island also kept the “owner occupied” requirement and the “disabled family member” requirement for the occupant of the ADU. The Ocean State law had the support of AARP, Rhode Island Housing, Grow Smart RI and Housing Network RI.

According to the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, the Granite State’s ADU law allows a city or town to permit detached ADUs, but they are not required to be permitted. “If a municipality allows detached ADUs, it may require an increased lot size.” The state says it’s important for detached ADUs to have a “proximity requirement with the main home, instead of being in a remote location on the lot.”

Two weeks ago, Massachusetts released a new housing needs study, ”A Home For Everyone,” which called for the creation of 22,000 new homes statewide every year for the next decade — even though Massachusetts may see no population growth in the next 10 years. The Pioneer Valley was projected to have “moderately low housing demand,” with Franklin County needing “less than 2.5% growth in year-round housing units to satisfy net increase in demand,” versus a 7.2% increase statewide. Baby boomers and Silent Generation households statewide will decline by 391,000 as they “move away, pass away, or move to other housing.”

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“It matters who owns rental units,” the new report warns, “because there is evidence that larger profit-driven investors are more likely to maximize rents, take quick action to evict renters who fall behind … and ‘flip’ properties for short-term capital gains.”

When the City Council finalizes Greenfield’s new ADU zoning, it should include:

■The right to limit ADUs to one per lot, which will be a “protected use” by right. No multiple units on the same lot.

■An ADU created inside a primary dwelling shall be considered one ADU on a lot.

■A detached ADU shall have a “proximity maximum setback” of 25 feet from the principal dwelling to keep the ADU closer to the principal dwelling than to a neighbor’s property.

■The city shall make ADU deed-restrictive Rental Housing Vouchers available to low- income households, not to exceed 30% of their income, as determined by the Greenfield Housing Authority. Massachusetts ranks last out all of 50 states in economic security for older adults, with higher housing costs being the main factor.

Over the past year, Greenfield has been proposing a patchwork of zoning amendments — on multifamily housing, to ADUs, to building heights — instead of a coordinated vision for recodification of our ordinance.

State-mandated ADUs should be called “Bismarck Accessible Dwellings (BAD),” which are habitable, once you get used to the smell of sausage.

Al Norman’s Pushback column is published in the Recorder on the first and third Wednesdays of the month.