Housing Greenfield Meeting Notes – 09/08/2025

Present: Susan Worgaftik, Peg Hall, Pamela Goodwin,  Wisty Rorabacher, Nancy Hazard, Carol Letson, Dorothy McIver,  Amy Cahillane, Edie Heinemann,  Mike Mullin, Brace Rennels,  Louise Amyot,  Rachel Gordon, Mariah Kurtz, Judy Draper, Mary McClintock, Noah Grunberg, Nikki Garrett, Jessa McCormack, Max Webbe

Discussions

Hope Street Lot Status and Next Steps—Susan Worgaftik
     Due to the introduction of a referendum to prevent housing from being built on the vacant Hope Street lot, a campaign “Vote No November 4th …Support Housing” has been organized.  The City Council voted to allow the city to sell the Hope Street lot to a builder for the purpose of building housing there.  The question on the ballot asks the voter to overrule that vote.  A NO vote supports the Council’s decision.
Right now individuals involved in Housing Greenfield are working on the campaign, but Housing Greenfield itself has not taken a vote on this.  As Housing Greenfield is a non-profit under the Greening Greenfield/Franklin County CDC umbrella, the organization can comment and campaign regarding ballot questions, but cannot do so in regard to candidates.
After much discussion, the group decided that, although the sentiment is to support this campaign, individuals, not the organization as a whole, will make their support for housing at this site known.  We will continue this discussion at our October 6th meeting.

Rent Stabilization—Jessa McCormack
     Jessa presented that there are currently two initiatives underway in Massachusetts to limit rent increases.  One is legislation [S.1447 / H.2328] and one is a ballot initiative.  The legislation is “enabling legislation” using “local option” language, so that it would change the current state law forbidding rent control, and give each municipality the option to enact their own measures that impose a limit on the size of annual rent increases.
There is also an effort to put rent stabilization /rent control on the statewide ballot for November 2026.  A summary of the referendum question is summarized Here.  This ballot initiative “would limit annual rent increases in Massachusetts to the cost of living (as measured by the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index), with a cap at 5%.”  Both the legislation and the ballot initiative have exceptions/exemptions, and more details you can read.
Because similar legislation has been introduced multiple times, the requested referendum would bring the issue directly to the voters.  Some have speculated that even the threat of the ballot measure might give the legislation a better chance.
There have been studies done on the terms “rent control” vs. “rent stabilization”, and while the latter polls better in some locations, there does not appear to be a difference in Massachusetts.
The referendum petition needs to have at least 75,000 verifiable signatures with no more than 20% coming from any one county, so 15,000 from Franklin County.  Max Webbe, Jessa, and Sara Brown are all involved in this.  If you would like to work on the gathering of signatures, contact Max at mwebbe@protonmail.com; Jessa at jessamaemccormack@gmail.com or Sara at saragerbrown@gmail.com.

Stone Farm Lane Condominiums—Noah Grunberg
     Noah approached Housing Greenfield for a letter of support to the Planning Board and/or the Zoning Board of Appeals for this project.  After a great deal of discussion about the environmental concerns on this lot regarding the development of 22 condominiums, Housing Greenfield voted to send a letter to the Planning Department of the city in support of this project.  The letter outlining the various issues can be found Here

Reports

Winter 2025-2026 Warming Center—Amy Cahillane
     Planning is ongoing for the warming center to once again be at the Salvation Army this year.  There will be some training provided so folks who volunteer will be familiar with the site.  Stay tuned for an email regarding a gathering to discuss next steps and training.  The city is also waiting to hear from the state about the possibility of funding for this effort.

NEXT MEETING WILL BE MONDAY, OCTOBER 6TH AT 6:30 VIA ZOOM. The 13th, our regular date is Indigenous People’s Day.

(There were several other issues on our agenda, but due to the length of our discussions, we limited the meeting to the topics above.)