SOUTH HADLEY — The special Town Meeting on Wednesday night began with a dark budgetary forecast showing that the town’s structural deficit for fiscal year 2027 is projected at $3 million and will increase by $2 million each year following if the town does not establish new revenue sources.
That grim fact set the tone for the rest of the two-hour meeting at which Town Meeting members passed a rezoning proposal for the Route 202/33 corridor and agreed to request six new liquor licenses from the state Legislature to bring more business to town despite concerns from some residents about dense development and alcohol abuse.
“Virtually every economic development proposal that comes before this body gets defeated because it doesn’t fix everything all at once. Nothing ever fixes everything all at once,” Town Meeting member Ira Brezinsky said. “It’s time that we start to do small, incremental things to move this community forward.”
Budget woes
The meeting kicked off with a presentation by the town’s Budget Task Force, which was formed in July to explore ways to address significant budget pressures from rising costs and constrained revenues. Co-chair Nicholas Gingras outlined the task forces’ findings, which echo Town Administrator Lisa Wong’s previous comments that expenses have outpaced revenue collected in the residential-heavy community with little development in 50 years.
“Anytime you have a situation like we have right now, with costs for a variety of reasons are radically exceeding that number [residential taxes], you’re going to have significant pressure on that budget unless you find more ways to drive growth above that number,” Gingras said.
The town has little control over these rising expenses, such as a $1.5 million hike in municipal employee health insurance this year or the continued cost of mandated special education services. State funding and policy changes are not enough to offset these large increases, Gingras said. Departments are smaller than neighboring towns and already run “lean,” he said.
“We’re experiencing a problem of unprecedented proportions to the town, which could impact services beyond what we’ve seen before, could materially reshape what we provide to the community from a service standpoint,” Gingras said.
The Budget Task Force report also listed a series of solutions, including opportunities for new growth, service and staff reduction and a Proposition 2½ override or debt exclusion. The group will present a formal report on an override during a Feb. 9 Select Board meeting. Residents can comment on the town budget during Dec. 8 and Jan. 22 public forums.
Changes coming to Route 202/33 corridor
Following the Budget Task Force’s report, Town Meeting members debated and approved two proposals designed to open up opportunity for new businesses and development along the Route 202/33 corridor.
The first plan rezones six different zones in the “L”-shaped corridor along Willimansett Street and Granby Road to two zones — residential mixed-use zone and residential core — with specific design criteria.
The residential mixed-use zone will create a “main street character” by creating small lot sizes, parking in the rear of buildings and pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, Planning and Conservation Director Anne Capra said.
The residential core zone fills the “missing-middle” housing types like duplexes, triplexes and cottage cluster housing, she said.
“It [cottage cluster housing] really is designed to support the needs of this community, which are seniors who are seeking to downsize their larger homes,” Capra said. “We hear that those people don’t have a place to go in this community. This zoning would support building housing for them.”
Several Town Meeting members reiterated concerns previously discussed in public forums. Joanna Brown said she spoke to many homeowners in the corridor who did not want a parking lot or a tall building next to their property.
Kathy Gallivan, who lives in the center of the corridor, said there have been 142 accidents in less than two years along the two state highways in the corridor, and more business would increase traffic.
Haddy Finkel said the proposal includes no deed-restricted affordable housing, allowing big developers to build expensive market rate units.
“You’re attacking their homes,” Sandra Zelinksky said. “They feel safe and it’s a pleasure to come home, even though they’re modest homes. They love their neighborhood, and you want to drastically change it.”
But in the face of stagnant townwide growth, most Town Meeting members spoke favorably about the proposal.
Alanna Hoyer-Leitzel said she lives on Route 202 and would love to feel like she lived in a village, not a state highway.
Joan Vohl Hamilton said there’s plenty of restrictions and regulations in place to ensure the street will not look like Route 33 in Chicopee, while Dave King pointed out that average age of people buying a home has gone up 10 years in a decade because of the lack of housing stock.
“When there’s more people around and there’s more more going on, traffic slows down,” Diane LaRoche said. “Right now, [Route] 202 is just a way to get from South Hadley to somewhere else, because there’s just not much there to stop or to slow down for. It is time to do something.”
Alcohol licenses
Another measure officials hope will attract more restaurants also won approval on Wednesday after Town Meeting approved a measure to petition the state Legislature for four additional on-premise alcohol licenses and two off-premise alcohol licenses. This number is down from a request approved by the Select Board a few weeks ago to ask for 10 on-premise and five off-premise licenses.
Board of Health Chair Karen Walsh urged Town Meeting to vote down the petition due to the lack of information on its impacts. Walsh explained that one alcohol license is issued for an average of 5,000 residents, but South Hadley has a license per 1,000 residents. Additionally, she said many package store owners and alcohol retailers expressed concern about new competition in town.
“We have not brought our underage drinking to a reasonable level,” Walsh said. “Kids are still able to access alcohol, and increase in access, signage, density, businesses, all of these things have unintended consequences.”
Town Meeting members disagreed, with a majority saying that not only is the change nominal, but will attract investment in town.
“We see the [Mount Holyoke College students] are going north and west, and rarely do we see people coming south or east from Northampton and Amherst,” Audrey Maney-Hernandez said. “I would love for more people to feel drawn to South Hadley, and I would love myself to feel more like I want to eat dinner in my own town and invest in my own town.”
Crypto kiosks banned
Other articles that passed included a special education stabilization fund and cryptocurrency ATM bylaw that outlaws kiosks trading cryptocurrency. These machines are commonly used in fraud scams, and a few South Hadley residents lost thousands of dollars. Police Chief Jennifer Gundersen explained that the bylaw will lower the risk of residents falling for these scams.