Planning Board Supports Rezoning Professional Research Park to Include Housing
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Report on the Meeting of the Amherst Planning Board, July 1, 2026
This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded.
Present
Planning Board: Doug Marshall (chair), Bruce Coldham, Fred Hartwell, Roy Johnson, Angus McLeod and Jesse Mager. Absent: Jerah Smith.
Staff: Walker Powell (planner) and Pam Field-Sadler (planning assistant).
Planning Board Suggests Opening More Areas of Town to Housing
The town’s zoning bylaw designates several areas as Professional Research Park (PRP), but most have remained undeveloped, with little interest in developing them. Because PRP districts do not permit housing, Planning Board member Angus McLeod proposed changing the zoning to allow townhouses, apartments (with no limit on the number of units), and mixed-use developments. The idea, outlined in this memo, received positive feedback from the board’s housing subcommittee.
The memo also addresses the Office Park (OP) designation, which covers only the eight lots at the corner of University Drive and Northampton Road that contain the Cooley Dickinson medical offices. Because that property is in the University Drive overlay district, and the OP zone already allows housing, Planning Department staff suggested eliminating the OP zone and rezoning the property as limited business.
The three PRP properties are on Route 9 adjacent to Greenleaves Drive in the western part of town; on the property between Montague and Sunderland roads where Beacon Communities had proposed building a 140-unit affordable housing project; and off Old Belchertown Road on the eastern border of town.
McLeod acknowledged that these properties are not ideal for subdivisions and that much of the land may not be developable. Most have extensive wetlands, and the Belchertown Road property contains the old landfill, which cannot be used for housing. “These three outlying districts have not seen the kind of development they were designed to foster when they were created in previous decades, so these changes are meant to be consistent with different housing priorities,” he said. He stressed that the uses currently allowed in the PRP would still be allowed, with housing added as a use.
Planner Walker Powell said the owner of the Greenleaves property had expressed frustration that he was unable to develop the PRP property there, and McLeod said he had talked to the owner of the Old Belchertown Road property. Planning Board member Roy Johnson offered to approach all of the owners more directly. The idea will also be presented to Building Commissioner Rob Morra and Planning and Economic Development Director Jeff Bagg for their input on the proposed zoning changes, and it must also be discussed by the Community Resources Committee.
Powell questioned what type of housing people in Amherst are interested in and whether small houses should be considered, but McLeod said he felt the most efficient way to create the most housing would be apartments. He said the zoning changes needed for small lots and starter homes were more complicated. “I’d like to see what developers can come up with,” he said.
McLeod Raises Concerns About Withdrawal of Beacon’s Affordable Project on Montague Road
McLeod brought up the Beacon project on Montague Road, which was withdrawn after several residents filed a lawsuit. He wrongly stated that the suit alleged housing was not allowed in the PRP; in fact, because the proposed project was a 40B affordable housing project, it was allowed regardless. However, because Amherst exceeds the state’s required minimum of 10% affordable units, the town is permitted to deny a 40B project.
Bruce Coldham, the only North Amherst resident on the Planning Board, said there was strong opposition to the project expressed at the public listening session he attended. “I think that Beacon, who’s got opportunities all over the state, probably took the temperature of the waters and decided that there would be better fish to fry in other places,” he said. Powell added that there is no sewer service to the property and that the town would have to apply for grants to extend service.
Coldham added that the same neighborhood enthusiastically supported the affordable duplexes Valley CDC built across Montague Road from the proposed Beacon project, but those are two stories. The Beacon plans called for four stories, and the developer was unwilling to reduce the height. “And I think people saw the designs that Beacon had produced for the North Square, and they’re pretty clumsy, and I think they put that all together and the general sense was not in my backyard,” he said.
McLeod, echoing sentiments previously expressed by fellow Planning Board member Jerah Smith and Town Council President Mandi Jo Hanneke, said, “It’s a shame there was a lawsuit filed before any of the documents had been brought forward by the developer, which is clearly meant to freak them out and forestall any of the actual democratic processes that we have in place for trying to consider developments like this. And I think it’s great that the developer proactively had a community listening session, but also that’s not everyone who would be affected by this—all of the potential people who would live in that kind of a development who are now going to have nowhere to live.”
Coldham pointed out that it was the community, not the developer, that asked for the meeting. Board member Jesse Mager said he hoped the lawsuit would not discourage other developers from building in Amherst.
Hearing for Amity Street Affordable Home Ownership Project Continued to July 15
Amherst Community Land Trust’s (ACLT) plan to build five affordable homeownership units at 174 Amity St. has received the needed permits from the Historical Commission, the Conservation Commission, and the Zoning Board of Appeals. Issuance of the site plan review permit to build a Habitat for Humanity duplex on the property, in addition to the three townhouses planned for the existing 1830s building, was delayed until July 15 because the Planning Board wanted more information.
Although Planning Board members supported the project, they had questions about where the pad for the required electrical transformer would go and how it would be screened. They also said the fieldstone path from the duplex to the trash receptacles would be hard to navigate for someone with impaired mobility, as well as difficult for wheeling a trash can and shoveling snow. They recommended that the path be asphalt or concrete instead. One of the Habitat duplexes will be an accessible unit.
Town Councilor Pam Rooney also asked why the parking spaces in front of the duplex were so long, but Marshall said he thought it had to do with the turning radius needed for the cars. Rooney also objected to the split-rail fence cordoning off the wetlands on the south side of the site. Coldham agreed and said he would speak to civil engineer Bucky Sparkle about replacing the fence with boulders. The Conservation Commission had suggested the fence but required only that the wetlands be protected by some means.
ACLT hopes to close on the purchase of the property by July 31. The group has received $300,000 from the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust and $450,000 from the Community Preservation Act and is currently fundraising and arranging loans to pay for the development.
The property is being sold by the Grose family at about half its assessed value. All five units will be sold at prices affordable to those making no more than 80% of area median income and will remain affordable at that level in perpetuity.
Planning Board Recommends Changes to Draft Clean Energy Bylaw
After several long joint hearings with the Community Resources Committee (CRC), version 14 of Amherst’s proposed Clean Energy Bylaw has been sent to the town attorney for review. The groups have not yet received comments from the attorney, but a new state law on renewable energy projects takes effect in October, so the town council must approve the new bylaw by then.
McLeod said he was concerned about the length of the bylaw. Although the state’s model bylaw is also lengthy, he said Amherst had added groundwater protections that seemed excessive to him and had also limited where solar arrays can be constructed and increased setbacks to wells. He worried the added requirements would inhibit, rather than encourage, the development of clean energy.
Other Planning Board members agreed with McLeod. Marshall noted that, under the proposed bylaw, there is nowhere in town where a Tier 3 solar installation would be permitted without a special permit. He suggested the board draft a letter of conditional support for the draft to the town council, noting the reservations expressed.
The Planning Board and CRC will discuss the bylaw again on July 15. Marshall said he hoped feedback from the attorney would be available by then.
Staff Shortage in Planning Department
Planner Walker Powell announced that Planner Jacinta Williams has resigned. This follows the May departure of Assistant Planning Director Nate Malloy, who became town manager in Hadley. Neither position has been filled. Williams was the staff member assigned to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
A very large significant “Research Park” resides on the tax exempt UMass Amherst campus footprint. For profit non-collegiate non-educational businesses rent UMass labs, cost share lab staff salaries, lab services and equipment for private corporate research and development purposes. This has evolved under the guise of companies supposedly being research partners all the while competing with and undermining the Town’s business economic development plans. Revenue is generated for the University (to build new science buildings) but not so much for the Town? The Town’s development park plans never had much of a chance to succeed.
One thing that concerns me about this proposal is the precedent it sets.
I have never believed Amherst should stop building housing. My concern has always been that we build the right housing in the right places, through a planning process that residents can trust.
The Land Court case over the Mitchell property was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice after Beacon Communities withdrew its proposal, making the litigation unnecessary. But the broader questions that prompted many of us to become involved did not disappear. They were about where large residential developments belong, how infrastructure and environmental constraints should be weighed, and how significant changes to land use should be made.
Now, instead of asking whether housing is appropriate under the existing zoning, we’re discussing changing the zoning itself. That is a major policy decision that deserves a broad community conversation, not simply because of one property, but because of what it means for every area residents have long understood to serve a different purpose.
I also question the assumption that Amherst must continually shoulder a disproportionate share of the region’s housing growth while many surrounding communities have yet to meet the state’s affordable housing goals. Housing is a regional challenge and should be addressed as one.
At the same time, Amherst has opportunities that few neighboring towns have. We are home to the flagship campus of UMass, whose enrollment has grown substantially over the years. Expanding on-campus housing, encouraging more students to live on campus, and increasing financial contributions toward the roads, public safety, and infrastructure that support the university deserve to be central parts of Amherst’s housing strategy. Those approaches could reduce pressure on the existing housing market without requiring every undeveloped parcel or specialized zoning district to become a candidate for residential development.
Zoning is more than a collection of regulations. It represents a long-term understanding between a community and its residents about how different parts of town should evolve. If entire districts can be repurposed whenever priorities change, residents naturally begin to wonder how much confidence they can place in the town’s planning framework.
I hope this discussion focuses not only on creating more housing—which Amherst does need—but also on creating the right housing, in the right places, while pursuing every available strategy to reduce demand and sharing responsibility fairly across the region.
I would also like to address the comments I continue to see raised regarding the court case we brought against Beacon and the Town of Amherst – now that I as a plaintiff can speak more freely about.
The withdrawal of Beacon Communities’ proposed 140-unit development at 246 Montague Road has been framed by the developer and some as another example of “anti-development” sentiment standing in the way of affordable housing. That framing is not only inaccurate, it risks undermining the very kind of civic participation communities are supposed to encourage.
From the beginning, many residents approached this proposal with serious but legitimate questions about infrastructure, wetlands, traffic, fiscal impacts, neighborhood scale, emergency services, and long-term planning. These were not abstract concerns. They were grounded in the realities of North Amherst and in the responsibility communities have to balance present needs with future consequences.
What is striking is that residents raising these concerns were repeatedly portrayed as obstructionists rather than participants in a functioning democratic process.
In public comments reported by the Gazette, Beacon Communities described legal action by residents as an attempt to “intimidate” decision-makers and suggested that community opposition is a direct driver of the national housing crisis. Shortly afterward, Beacon withdrew from the project, citing “significant neighborhood opposition” and an unwillingness to engage in “protracted anti-development litigation.”
But community engagement did exactly what it is supposed to do. Residents reviewed the proposal, attended meetings, researched zoning and infrastructure issues, consulted legal counsel, and organized around concerns they believed had not yet been adequately addressed. Questions were raised about the extension of sewer infrastructure, traffic impacts on Route 63, stormwater and wetlands, firefighting capacity, fiscal impacts on taxpayers, and whether a four-story, 140-unit project was appropriate for that site under Amherst zoning and state law.
Those questions were not irrational, nor were they anti-housing.
In fact, Amherst is already a leader in affordable housing. The town’s Subsidized Housing Inventory exceeds the state’s 10% benchmark under Chapter 40B. Amherst residents have consistently supported affordable housing initiatives over many years – including here in North Amherst. The issue here was never whether housing is needed. The issue was whether this particular proposal, on this particular site, represented good planning and an appropriate balance of competing community needs.
There is also an important distinction between opposing all development and insisting that development withstand scrutiny. Large-scale residential projects have real implications for municipal budgets, schools, roads, water systems, emergency response, and environmental resilience. Across the country, communities grapple with these questions because the costs and impacts of poorly planned development can last for generations.
These are precisely the kinds of issues local planning processes are intended to evaluate.
Equally important, the suggestion that resident engagement somehow “prematurely” disrupted the process overlooks the extent to which the process was already underway. The proposal had been publicly presented, discussed with staff and committees, and supported by a Town Manager letter submitted to advance the project into the state eligibility process. Residents did not interrupt an abstract idea before it entered public view; they responded to an active proposal moving through the early stages of review.
Reasonable people can disagree about housing policy, density, growth, and land use. But we should be cautious about dismissing civic participation as obstruction simply because residents ask difficult questions or pursue legal clarity.
A healthy planning process is not one in which residents quietly accept every proposal placed before them. It is one in which projects are tested against zoning, infrastructure realities, environmental constraints, fiscal impacts, and long-term community priorities. Sometimes projects move forward after that scrutiny. Sometimes they change. Sometimes they do not proceed.
That is not failure. That is the process working as intended.
Finally some good news.