GREENFIELD — As the city’s Community Preservation Committee decides how it will spend $213,000 in available CPA funds, the public weighed in at a hearing Thursday, expressing an overwhelming support for projects related to affordable housing.

The state Community Preservation Act allows municipalities to adopt a property tax surcharge of up to 3%, the revenues from which are matched by state funds. Greenfield joined the CPA in 2020 with a 1% local surcharge, allowing the city to receive state-matching funds for projects and initiatives related to housing, historic preservation, open space conservation and outdoor recreation.

This year, the committee will decide which of the 11 proposed projects totaling $248,000 it will recommend to City Council. Of the applications presented, two were submitted by the Greenfield Housing Association to create additional housing units on Conway Street for $8,000 and to bolster the organization’s Security Deposit and Rental Assistance Fund for $15,000. The two requests received significant public support.

“This particular project I’m excited about. I think it’s very creative that, as I understand it, they’re thinking of [building] maybe five units,” city resident Nancy Hazard said of the Conway Street project. “It’s in a great location … and it’s greatly needed. I’m impressed with the design that they’ve come up with, figuring out how to have the maximum number of units on such a small piece of property.”

The Housing Authority’s proposal to expand its rental assistance fund was met with similar public support, with some residents agreeing that the application asked for a relatively small amount of money and would serve an important need in the community.

Housing activist Joan Marie Jackson was among those who expressed support for the authority’s proposal to feed the rental assistance fund. Jackson’s request that the committee double funding for the proposal was echoed by other members of the public, such as Al Norman, who noted that the fund will help renters circumnavigate rising rent prices.

“I’d like to see [the Housing Authority] get more money so they can serve more people,” Housing activist Al Norman said. “I’d also like to see the project provide moving assistance, if you could negotiate that with the GHA, because I know that it’s needed as a project.”

While members of the public expressed resounding support for Greenfield Housing Associates’ $18,000 request to renovate and redevelop the Winslow apartment building at 9 Wells St., an $18,000 proposal from Noble Home, LLC to install a greywater collection system for its proposed 24-unit condominium development at Stone Farm Lane was the sole CPA housing project to receive mixed reviews.

Proponents of the greywater project, such as At-Large City Councilor Sara Brown, who also serves as Valley Housing Cooperative’s co-founder and president, spoke to the project’s eco-friendly attributes and importance in the goal to create affordable condominiums on undeveloped land.

“I’m particularly excited about this project, because I feel like it is addressing both the climate crisis and the housing crisis,” Brown said. “The community land trust model is unique, because homeowners are applying for a home-only mortgage, and that is making the unit affordable, and the affordability is preserved in perpetuity in the ground lease.”

Others, such as Norman, Jackson, and resident Beth Lorenz expressed concerns with the project’s environmental safety, cost effectiveness and affordability level.

“[Noble Home Owner Noah Grunberg] has seven acres. He wants to put the complex under the central core of the building structure. What does he do if he has a failure in the system in the long term? ... How would it be resolved in the meantime, if there’s a problem with it,” Lorenz said. “If you have failure, it could be due to toxins that are in the laundromat that should not be going into the groundwater.”

Most of those who spoke during public comment expressed that housing should be prioritized in the distribution of CPA funds, however others supported the Connecticut River Conservancy’s $45,984 request to rehabilitate the the First Franklin County Courthouse, the Franklin County Fairgrounds’ $17,178 historic cattle barn restoration, and Greenfield Public Library’s $7,000 request to preserve historic reading materials in its local history room.

Included in the CPC’s recreational proposals are two applications totaling $72,361 from Greenfield Pickleball that were briefly discussed, with resident Gary Tashjian speaking in favor of the project. Other recreation proposals, such as the Recreation Department’s $32,000 request for STEM play equipment at Hillside Park, were not discussed by the public Thursday.

The CPC is expected to vote on which projects to recommend funding in March before City Council discusses the recommendations between April and June.

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.