The Center Town District boundaries defined by the Center Town District Steering Committee after residents provided their preferences at an outreach event in October.
Reminder Publishing photo by Sarah Heinonen
EAST LONGMEADOW — The East Longmeadow Center Town District Steering Committee took the first concrete step toward creating the district by mapping out the district’s boundaries, using input from residents.
East Longmeadow has been considering different versions of a Center Town District for several years. The town’s first run at a mixed-use zone was in 2020. Deputy Town Manager Rebecca Lisi said the Mixed-Use Village District bylaw was “overly tailored,” applying to just a couple of properties in town, and therefore was not applied to the zoning map.
Lisi emphasized that the district is not a response to a developer proposal or building project. “We did get a lot of pushback, initially, because there were rumors about ‘low-income’ housing being developed somewhere. But this isn’t a development project,” Lisi said.
Instead, she said the district is “really a focus on zoning or land use.” There are many parcels near Center Square that are zoned industrial, a leftover from before the town created the industrial garden park district. Creating the district allows that land, a portion of which sits vacant, to be redeveloped in line with the vision for the district, rather than be developed into another industrial use. The regulations for what developments would be allowed in the district will be laid out in a bylaw, drafted by the committee, and sent for approval by the town.
The purpose of the district being envisioned now would be to create a walkable downtown, with shops, offices, amenities and a variety of housing solutions in a mixed-use space. In East Longmeadow, the anchor of this space would be the rotary.
“Once people understand that the Center Town District will create more variety in the town’s housing options — for young professionals and older people who want to downsize, they ‘warm’ to the concept. They understand the purpose of the district and the value it holds over future development,” she said.
Until now, the committee has been engaged in outreach, talking with residents to see what the town wants out of the district. “I think it’s been a learning process, but we’ve had really well-attended meetings,” Lisi said, describing the process as a “democratic exercise.”
“I think we’re reaching this pivotal moment where we’re pivoting from gathering information to making decisions about what the district is going to look like,” Lisi said.
At the committee’s Dec. 12 meeting, the town’s consultants, Kyle Finnell and Aodhan Hemeon of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, presented 15 potential maps, created by groups of residents at the committee’s previous meeting. While one of the maps was blank, indicating that the group working on it did not want a Center Town District, the other 14 maps showed a wide range of potential boundaries. Working with the committee, Finnell and Hemeon overlayed the maps to find areas of town that the residents agreed upon.
With that information, four options were presented to the committee. The first was a small, “compact core” district, focusing on the rotary and the area southwest of there, ending at Spruce Street. Of the parcels included, 1.2% of the town’s total, more than a third is zoned for business and a quarter is zoned industrial. Twenty percent of the parcels on that map are residential.
The “central district” map was designed to stretch further north along North Main Street and include a narrow strip south along Shaker Road to Chestnut Street. Similar to the “compact core” map, 38% of the parcels in this version of the district would be zoned for business and 29% would be zoned as industrial. Again, 20% of the parcels are zoned as residential.
Some of the maps residents created called for a significantly larger district, stretching south to encompass 330 Chestnut St., which was recently the subject of controversy over a proposed warehouse development. The map had been drawn to extend the district along North Main Street, nearly to the Springfield border. A third of that map contains parcels in the industrial garden park zone, while 16% is industrial zoned outside the garden park and 19% is zoned business. Residential parcels made up another 17%. An alternative to this was to have a smaller main district and a subdistrict encompassing 330 Chestnut St.
Residents at the meeting weighed in on the maps. Elinor Shuman commented that Amherst had built mixed-use buildings without considering parking solutions for the residents moving into the area. Instead, residents parked in public parking locations. On a related note, Roland Bolduc spoke about traffic being brought into the area by the people who would be living there, despite the concept of not needing a vehicle in a walkable area.
Ernest Gagnon said the town would need to provide services for new residents. He was concerned about density and the number of housing units compared to businesses. That information will be determined by the bylaw.
Housing options are needed in town, said Gregory Thompson. He said people are concerned about affordable housing. Under the legal definition of affordable housing, households must make 80% or less of the area median income, which in the greater Springfield area is $87,600 for a family of four, translating into a maximum rent of $2,190.
“I think we can get market-based reasonably priced housing — not affordable housing — for our aging parents, for our children who have graduated high school or college recently and want to live in East Longmeadow,” Thompson said. “The country has a massive shortage, and we all need to do our part. If we want East Longmeadow to be healthy, it has to continue to grow.”
One resident said that aside from the “Carlin Building,” at 70 Maple St. and closing off Center Court, the plan was “way too ambitious.”
Bolduc asked if residents had been notified about “what’s about to happen to their area.” However, without drawn boundaries, notifying individual residents within those boundaries was not possible. Roland and Shirlene Bolduc also expressed dismay that only the members of the public who attended the Center Town District engagement event in October had a hand in creating the maps.
Center Town District Steering Committee member Nicole Polite favored the compact core map. She said a small district would minimize financial risk for both developers and the town and would be easier on East Longmeadow’s infrastructure. She added that a smaller district would help ease the town into the reality of having the district.
Center Town District Steering Committee member Stephen Graham also leaned toward the compact core, but said some aspects of the mixed-use district could be adapted and included. He said there are already restaurants, a health club and the Red Stone Rail Trail “within minutes” of the center of the town. “What we don’t have is housing,” he said, adding that “if developed right” East Longmeadow “could become, I think, one of the nicest walking communities anywhere.”
Center Town District Steering Committee member Dawn Stark also liked the compact core and agreed with Polite that it would be easier for the community to adjust. She said she is “pro-business” and “if it’s a ‘Center Town District,’ let’s keep it in the center.” However, she repeatedly expressed concern about including the residential properties in the area, including her own.
Meanwhile, Center Town District Steering Committee Chair Carolyn Ferros said she preferred the “central district” that encompassed more of the corridors along Shaker Road and North Main Street. She said it had the fewest Residential A properties included. She also said the district could be drawn to encourage people away from the rotary.
Center Town District Steering Committee member Jason Gumpert was the only one in favor of the expansive mixed-use corridor that included a strip of properties running north-to-south through the center of town. He said it would allow for “exploratory development” and “flexibility.”
While not at the meeting, Town Councilor Ralph Page had submitted comments, including a suggestion to create the bylaw first and then identify the district that would best meet the bylaw’s goals. He also was against including 330 Chestnut St. Or the Industrial Garden Park, which he said was “one of our town’s best features” and industrial parcels “recession-proof” the town.
The committee went to work, starting with the compact core map and tweaking it to include fewer residential properties, adding the Carlin Building and the storage facility that abuts the wetlands alongside the rail trail to the north of the rotary. The border was stretched south to include the properties between the rail trail and Shaker Road, stopping at Chestnut Street. The resulting map creates a district that includes the rotary but is centered west of there.
Lisi emphasized that the boundaries could be altered as the process continues. She said the Steering Committee will move on to drafting the bylaw. The map and bylaw will be sent to the Planning Board for public hearings, and eventually, go through the Town Council’s bylaw process. She said there will be plenty of additional opportunities for residents to provide input.
“We’re still a long ways from a complete bylaw, but we’re moving in the right direction,” Lisi said.
