Opinion: In Amherst Town Elections It’s Progressives vs. Neoliberals

The 2025 Council Candidates on Housing and Zoning

The Progressives

At Large: Ellisha Walker, Allegra Clark

D1: Jill Brevik, Cathy Schoen, Vince O’Connor

D2: Amber Cano-Martin

D3: Heather Hala Lord, Patick Drumm

D4: Jennifer Taub, Pam Rooney

These council candidates support creating sustainable housing for year-round residents, such as senior housing and mixed-income housing, and zoning tools to protect neighborhoods from real estate speculators. They also support urging UMass to significantly increase on campus housing to relieve the stress on Amherst. 

The Neoliberals on Housing and Zoning)

At Large: Andy Churchill, Mandi Jo Hanneke

D1: Freke Ette

D2: Lynn Griesemer, Jason Dorney

D3: Geroge Ryan

D4: Dillon Maxfield

These council candidates support market-based solutions and unfettered development of student housing in the downtown, village centers, and neighborhoods. They do not support housing more students on campus because they want the revenue student housing could provide regardless of the resulting loss of low- and middle-income residents and of enrollment in our schools. 

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Probably the most important issue for Amherst residents over the last 15 years has been that of how to manage student housing. When UMass decided to enroll more students than it could house, that was a turning point. Archipelago Investments formed at about the same time, in 2009. Archipelago and other developers have added over 800 units of housing since then, mostly in or around the downtown area. Meanwhile, real estate speculators have been circulating residential neighborhoods, eager to buy up single-family homes as student rentals, especially targeting the neighborhoods with the lowest home values, like Orchard Valley and East Amherst.. 

This year, as in previous elections, there is a fairly stark division between the council candidates who favor unfettered development and those who do not. The Amherst Forward PAC-supported and very Republicanish council majority supports a neo-liberal position of development at all costs to the year-round residents. Under this market-based approach, developers choose to build the more profitable student housing, which drives up housing costs overall and results in year-round residents leaving town.

And the current council majority has not chosen to adopt any of the many possible zoning tools that could be used to disincentivize profiteering real estate development, tools that are used in other college towns. Some in the majority have criticized the new resident-authored zoning bylaw proposals as anti-student or discriminatory when they are actually both pro- year round resident and pro-student. Proposed Article 19 deems housing a right and looks for a way to abate the crazy escalation of rents that has been caused by unfettered development. It helps to undermine real estate profiteering which is what is driving up rents for all (students and non-students alike) while shrinking the housing stock available to year-round residents. Article 18 seeks to pressure UMass to house more of its students at non-market rates on campus, a solution urgently sought by students.

The current independent minority on the council supports a balanced approach of encouraging UMass to house more students on campus, prioritizing housing needed by year-round residents (such as senior and mixed-income housing), and using zoning tools available to us to protect our downtown, village centers, and neighborhoods from becoming unbalanced by disincentivizing real estate speculation.

The recent Housing Production Plan indicates that there are now about 40,000 residents in Amherst, including 18,000 students living on the UMass, Amherst, and Hampshire campuses, 9,000 students living off campus here, and 13,000 year-round residents. That indicates a big decline in year-round residents, which we hope will not continue. The K–12 school enrollment is also half what it was at its peak.

Darcy DuMont is a founding member of Zero Waste Amherst, Local Energy Advocates of Western MA and the Amherst Climate Justice Alliance. As an Amherst town councilor, she sponsored the legislation creating the Amherst Energy and Climate Action Committee. She is a frequent contributor to The Amherst Indy.