Hadley’s smart growth zone study explores reduced parking needs

HADLEY — An ongoing study to create Hadley’s first smart growth zoning district on Route 9 could lead to changes in the way town planners handle parking requirements for commercial and mixed-use developments.

In an update to the Planning Board on Dec. 2, Kyle Finnell, a senior land use and environment planner with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, said that parking bylaw changes may be needed if and when a Chapter 40R smart growth overlay is implemented.

One of these changes might be to overhaul the current requirement of 2 square feet of parking for each square foot of building floor area for all commercial developments.

“I haven’t seen many communities that approach parking this way,” Finnell said.

The town, he said, does have a different rule for industrial and manufacturing uses in the industrial zone, one space for 300 square feet of office space, one space for every 10,000 square feet of area and one space for each employee on duty. This, Finnell said, is more typical in other cities and towns.

“Communities can get as detailed as they want when they write these parking requirements,” Finnell said.

The idea of a Chapter 40R zone under state law is to encourage “communities to create dense residential or mixed-use smart growth zoning districts, including a high percentage of affordable housing units.” Its study is being funded by a grant from the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

Under such a district, 20% of the housing must be provided for people making 80% of the area’s median income. Communities that adopt such districts get an upfront payment from the state, between $10,000 and $600,000, depending on how many projected units could be built, and an additional $3,000 payment for each unit that is brought online.

Finnell explained that for about 20 years, it’s become increasingly common in the planning profession to reassess the price point for on-street parking, though this is difficult in a town where there are no metered on-street spaces. Still, the growing trend is to let the market dictate the parking needs.

“A lot of communities are reforming their zoning regulations and removing parking requirements altogether,” Finnell said. “They’re letting the market decide.”

Finnell explained that pavement adds a significant cost to a project, which might deter some developers, and also has environmental implications, such as increased stormwater runoff.

Hadley’s current rules also mean that parking lots may not look the same, since there are no specifics about how wide or long the spaces are or the size of the travel lanes.

“That inconsistency is because the regulation is total area. It doesn’t get into any more detail,” Finnell said.

Hadley does offer an option for reserve parking, where a developer doesn’t have to pave parking unless it is needed, and can use the transfer of development rights bylaw to reduce parking by putting money into a fund to save farmland.

Planning Board member Mark Dunn, who has chaired the Smart Growth Steering Committee, said he has concerns about too much parking. “We are knowingly asking for more than they actually need,” Dunn said.

But Planning Board Clerk William Dwyer said there is always a balance because Hadley only has limited on-street parking, with a few spaces on Railroad Street near the Norwottuck Rail Trail.

“Unlike Northampton we have zero charged on-street parking, we have no meters,” Dwyer said.

The situation is most pronounced near the shopping malls, where Route 9 can’t accommodate parking, there is no town-owned garage nearby and the existing lots can get filled to capacity during the holiday season.

As a point of comparison, Finnell showed how Greenfield allows parking exemptions within its central business district, permits off-site parking within 500 feet of a property and mandates various design requirements.

The next step for getting a smart growth zone established would be a meeting of the steering committee and continued refining the bylaw, which may have a section on design standards that could specify what the streetscape or buildings look.

Finnell said Chapter 40R also requires a community to set maximum amounts for parking, though a developer would be free to reduce that as they need.

“The hope is that the steering committee will continue to work at a pace where a nearly finished, ready for public bylaw, will be drafted,” Finnell said. This would possibly allow the Planning Board to consider bringing a zoning article to annual Town Meeting next May.

Dunn said he isn’t sure residents would be ready then, but public engagement could continue into the spring and summer.

Planning Board member Joseph Zgrodnik said another concern with moving forward with adopting such a district, already in place in Easthampton, Northampton and South Hadley, is this could mean housing for more college students.

Finnell said he is not sure there is a way to regulate that type of occupancy through the Chapter 40R regulation.

“The only instances where age restriction is allowed is when a developer voluntary comes into a 40R project for the elderly, and that has to be an option,” Finnell said.

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