SOUTH HADLEY — On Wednesday, Town Meeting members will contemplate approval of the town’s first historic district, reduction of speed limits on thickly settled roads and a citizen petitioned ordinance declaring South Hadley a welcoming community.

The biggest ticket item for the annual and special Town Meetings is the $58,070,759 operating budget for fiscal year 2026, which includes proposed reductions to 17 town and school positions. The annual meeting at 6 p.m. in South Hadley High School will begin with a special Town Meeting before moving through the consent agenda, capital and operational budgets, zoning bylaws and general bylaw additions.

The welcoming communities ordinance — placed on the warrant by citizen petition — is likely cause the most controversy at Town Meeting due to language regarding immigration and U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement.

Adopted by many surrounding towns in the area, these ordinances are moral policies designed to show the town’s dedication to creating a community for everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, disability or immigration status, said Human Rights Commission member Gena Lomelin at an April 23 meeting.

“I would guarantee you that there are people in South Hadley, and in the state, and in the country, and in the world, who do not feel welcomed.” Town Administrator Lisa Wong said during the meeting. “I know that there are things within my power to signal and indicate to make sure that everyone here feels like they have a place within the community”

While the document suggests some ways the town may show it’s a welcoming community, like not using local police resources to support ICE activities or not inquiring into immigration status to provide public services, passing the ordinance does not indicate a change in policies and procedures.

“There’s nothing that actually changes the existing policies and procedures for the police department,” Wong said. “My reading of this is this is not an operational ordinance or article, this is a cultural and a moral one.”

While the Human Rights Commission raised concern that the ordinance declares the town a sanctuary city for immigrants, Lomelin clarifies this is more about creating a welcoming atmosphere by avoiding giving different members of the community different treatment based solely on identity, including immigration status.

“This is not anything about sanctuary,” Lomelin said. “It’s just simply about making people feel safe and welcomed in town. If there is something actually criminal, nobody stands in anyone’s way, but it just doesn’t go into facilitating or acting on behalf of ICE.”

Speed limit changes,historic district

Residents will also consider adopting 25 mph statutory speed limits on any streets without posted speed limit signs. Currently, speed limits in these areas are 30 mph, but the new bylaw would lower them 5 mph in any business district or residential street where homes are less than 200 feet apart.

Wong explained at an April 15 Select Board meeting that the measure will hopefully slow down cars when the police are not around to monitor speeding.

“There’s some mixed feeling about this,” Wong said. “It’s not a be-all (and) end-all because it still requires that people actually drive the speed limit, but it’s one tool in the toolbox,” Wong said.

For the first time in South Hadley, residents will vote on a new proposal at Town Meeting to dedicate the Old Firehouse Museum and the adjacent Fred M. Smith Memorial Greens as the town’s first historic district.

Placing the historic building under this designation will hopefully lead to economic revival and attraction in the South Hadley Falls neighborhood, Melissa Taylor, chair of the Historic District Study Committee, previously told the Gazette.

In other items, Town Meeting will vote to approve a bylaw officially outlining the responsibilities and duties of South Hadley’s Affordable Housing Trust. Created in 2013, the town used a $50,000 state grant to create the bylaw, which will then permit the trust to create a plan, declaration of trust and proposed budget.

There are three zoning bylaws on Town Meeting’s agenda. One bylaw will change the zone of 1.5 acres on a 16-acre Old Lyman Road parcel, which will allow the owner to create a six-unit subdivision. Another replaces the accessory dwelling unit bylaw approved by Town Meeting last year to comply with new state regulations. A third bylaw will designate the Village Commons as its own Village District to allow residential units mixed in with the restaurants and commercial businesses.

“They choose to make a new district rather than have it all be business B or business A because there’s some uses in those other district’s that they don’t want to allow, like gas stations and auto repair shops,” Director of Planning and Conservation Anne Capra said.

Town Meeting will also discuss $1.5 million in capital requests, wastewater system purchases and the Ledges Golf Course budget.