Housing challenges, solutions addressed at Community Health Improvement Plan talk
Published: 01-17-2025 8:50 AM |
GREENFIELD — In a region where housing comes at a premium, increasing the diversity of homes and public backing of zoning changes may be the key to unlocking development and growth.
At Thursday afternoon’s Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) progress update, Franklin Regional Council of Governments Housing and Livability Program Manager Megan Rhodes laid out the challenges facing the community’s housing stock, as well as how the 30 communities that make up Franklin County and the North Quabbin region can address them.
The current vacancy rate for rental units is about 0.2% and the vacancy rate for homes is 1.9% in Franklin County, according to Rhodes, who noted housing is also getting even more expensive. In May 2024, at a listening session at Greenfield Community College, an Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities representative said one in four renter households are spending more than half their income on rent and utilities.
“There’s very, very low available housing for people and the housing that is available is getting more expensive,” Rhodes said.
She did add, though, there are actions that can happen in the Pioneer Valley that may be able to reverse the tide.
Even while Franklin County’s population is decreasing, the number of households is still increasing, according to Rhodes.
“One of the first things we need to do is diversify the type of housing we have in our region. Most of our communities, if you look around, are a traditional single-family home on a large lot, which is great, except it doesn’t fit all household types,” Rhodes said. “We need smaller homes, we need starter homes for new families to move to our region and fill our schools, we need energy-efficient homes … we need things like accessory dwelling units, we need more multi-family duplexes available.”
Those changes, though, cannot come without zoning amendments at the town level, which Rhodes said are a powerful tool that is relatively straightforward to bring to fruition. Most communities, she added, are zoned for single-family homes on large lots and different variations of housing may require going through a special permit process.
Article continues after...
Yesterday's Most Read Articles






“In order to have more different housing, we first have to make sure that they’re allowed,” Rhodes said. “This is the kind of first step we can do, is change our local zoning.”
There are bright spots for housing, both in the last few years and on the horizon. Rhodes highlighted the success of Sanderson Place in Sunderland, which brought 33 senior housing units to the region, as well as the anticipated 2029 completion of 18 affordable units on Care Drive in Erving.
There’s also the state’s Affordable Homes Act, which will allow accessory dwelling units by right in single-family zoning districts, create a commercial property conversion program and allow tenants to seal certain eviction records, among other initiatives.
“Change is hard and change can be scary. We are very accustomed in Franklin County to a certain look of our landscape and changing that can be tricky,” Rhodes said, adding that people might be worried about their community changing, but more housing means more people working in the region and more students in schools. “We need housing in order to have jobs.”
Other updates provided at the CHIP meeting included an update from FRCOG and Community Action Pioneer Valley on their joint effort to increase access to adult driver’s education and a presentation from Community Legal Aid on its efforts to reduce barriers raised by previous criminal court records when it comes to accessing housing or employment.
In February, Community Action will launch classes for English-speaking adults who have never gotten a learner’s permit, which will also subsidize at least two permit exams for participants.
On Community Legal Aid’s end, Senior Supervising Attorney of the CORI/Re-Entry Unit Alyssa Golden said her organization, which has offices in Greenfield and Northampton, is encouraging folks who have been denied housing or employment based on previous criminal records to work with them to appeal those decisions and, in some cases, seal or expunge records.
Due to the complex nature of the legal system, as well as the sometimes “very vague” decisions issued by housing authorities, Golden said it can be difficult for people to exercise their right to appeal these decisions.
“We encourage you to reach out to us to send folks our way, to encourage people to see advantage of their appeal rights because there are a lot of options that exist, but there are a lot of barriers in place,” Golden said. “It’s really easy to get discouraged, especially where in order to address a criminal record issue it requires talking about really, really personal, intimate parts of your life. … We recognize that and respect that and keep that at the forefront of the work that we’re doing.”
More information about Community Legal Aid can be found at communitylegal.org. FRCOG’s CHIP plan can be found at bit.ly/4jhDvUa.
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.