Okie dokie. So, welcome to the uh Greenfield City Council's Economic Development Committee uh meeting here on February 10th, 2026. I'm going to call this meeting to order. And the first order of business is a
roll call of members. Seeing that we have folks online and also that it's a roll call, it has to be uh done verbally. So I will start at the top of the list. Councelor Garrett is me and I am here in attendance. Uh councelor Bonmley, are you present?
>> Yes, here. >> Beautiful. Uh councelor Gordon, are you here? >> Here. >> Awesome. And councelor Minhas is not yet present, but we're going to hold out hope that he is able to arrive. And that is that. Um the first order of business
now that we are officially convened is the approval of minutes for December 4th and December 9th. Um can I get a motion on the minutes? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Great. Um any discussion on these minutes?
>> The only thing I'll say is it was helpful reading through to know exactly why we are here having this discussion. It was again a good reminder of all the kind of steps that came ahead. All right. Um we are now at public comment.
>> Do we need a roll call to approve? >> Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Um and so if I can get a roll call to approve the minutes. Um we'll start with myself. I vote. Yes. Uh councelor Bottom. >> Yes. >> Uh councelor Gordon.
>> Yes. Okay. >> The minutes are approved. Thank you folks. Let me just record that real quick. And thank you councelor Gordon for the reminder that we have to vote on things. Um and we are now at public comment.
There are no members of the public present in this room. Uh Director Ka, do you want to make a public comment? >> No, thank you. >> All right. There is no one waiting in the online meeting room and there is no one remote online. So, we are done with
public comment. Moving on to public hearing. There is no public hearing. There are no motions. So, we're going to move on from that. And now we are to a discussion. We're not making a recommendation. We're just talking about the um items that I put back on the
agenda for today, which are twofold. revisiting the vote for the proposed zoning amendment regarding accessory dwelling units that was defeated in December as well as the uh lawyer recommended um uh what do you call it the uh suspension
of the rules in order to reconsider a motion before 9 months. So there's two votes that we'll have to do in uh the main meeting and that's what's up for discussion. So uh that is the discussion on the table. Um, and I would just entertain any discussion the folks want
to have about it. >> Well, I guess I can start since I voted against it. city council meeting or uh couple city council meetings ago uh just to make I I had originally done it as a protest vote because I did feel that uh
it was a little heavy-handed from the state, but uh we we do need to follow the law and we're going to have to comply with it. So um I would be changing my vote to a yes because we're going to ultimately have to comply with the law. I just over the
many years that we talked about this, I got a lot of feedback from the public and I'm just not sure it would have gone down exactly this way had we been allowed to follow a process through our city alone and not being forced to do it a certain way and that was really my
only concern on it. That makes sense. Yeah. Thank you, John. Um, councelor Gordon, anything you want to add to it or >> Yeah, I mean I really appreciate you saying that. Um, councelor Bottomley, I think I mean I totally understand why people made felt the need to make
protest votes on this. Um, and at the same time we do have to follow the law and I I missed all of this cuz I I missed the meeting in December. I was really sick. Um, so I kind of came back to it like what just happened and I wish I'd been there because I would have been
a vote um in in favor. But I mean to me this just isn't the hill to die on. like we do have to follow state law and and you know I understand people's frustration with it and I don't think that it helps Greenfield for us to be sort of like making protest votes
against things that are really priorities for the governor when we're not going to actually change what the governor and what the legislature has told us we have to do. Um it's just not like the kind of banner I want to be waving from Greenfield to the state government. I think there, you know, we
I would save that for for things where we can actually maybe hopefully have more of a a real impact if we feel the need to push back on the state. So, that's my thinking about it. Um, I do support, you know, ADU construction and and any possible housing, as folks know,
and I support us following state law. So, when this goes to full council, I'm going to vote yes. I wasn't sure about um the suspension of the rules part because all I saw in the packet was that the lawyer suggested it, but I wasn't I I don't know if I missed an email or
something, but or if there's like background explanation on that. You don't have to go into it now because obviously it'll come up at full counsel, but um I don't really have much to say about that because I'm not quite sure what it means. >> Yeah. No, sorry. I just glad this person in um No, thank you for your comments
both of you. Um the suspension of the rules piece I can address. That was from the opinion of the lawyer as you said and I the entire reason it's in there is because he suggested that we needed it to reconsider this before 9 months. That was basically the idea. So I guess our our council rules typically say if
something has failed, you know, so it's a just making sure that we hit every single element we need to hit. So >> I worked with Kathy and we just did it the way he said so this would be as clean as possible. >> That makes sense. I think I was thinking of it as like a more complicated
suspension of the rules, but it's really just like it says we can't bring it back >> unless we vote to suspend the rules, in which case then we can decide to bring it back. >> Yeah. And there's actually this two other there's another element to it that if we don't pass this um zoning change
this month, we have to do another public hearing with the planning board, which really motivated me to get this in now >> because it was either January or February, and it turned out it was February. I actually found out about that the day that the 5-day rule kicked
in. So, I'm like, "Okay, I'm heading to city hall right now." Um, so that was that's where the urgency came from. Um, so the only other, you know, just to recognize myself briefly, the only other thing I wanted to add to the discussion is regardless of what we do here in Greenfield on the zoning amendment, state law trumps local law. So, the
developer came in and they had, you know, they had the state law guidance in hand, they would be able to do what this zoning change does anyway. So it it truly like it doesn't change the facts on the ground other than making it both clearer for developers and also in the
eyes of the state we're a town that isn't defying them which we've seen with other communities that that's result in a loss of funding and you know Greenfield is going to have a tight budget year this year and coming up and I really want us to get as much funding as we possibly can. So that's another
motivation on my end. Um that's really all I have to say about it. I'm hoping this goes smoothly at full council. I'm, you know, maybe not. Obviously, I'm in favor of this passing. Um, and that's, yeah, that's really the only only comments I have on it. Do you guys have anything else you wanted to add in
or we ready to go back to uh the evening? >> I I'll just say I appreciate you paying attention to all of the dates and deadlines and making sure that we got this on the agenda uh while we still had time to do something about it without having to go through the whole entire process again, which is a would be a
waste of of people's valuable time. um across the city. So, I appreciate you for that. >> And I I want to give credit to director Wise who I spoke to, you know, about this. I was curious if it this was coming back from uh the planning board perspective or if they wanted to
initiate it on council. And it was through that conversation I realized how much we needed to do this now. And so that's that's why she requests that I put it in rather than it coming from the planning department. So that's that's the other piece of it. So all right. Um
I think that's sounds like we've had a full discussion. Um our next meeting is not uh dated on this uh agenda packet which is unusual but typically it's the what the second Tuesday of uh March. So I'm just going
to look up that date. >> Not that it's right. >> Uh let's double check. Yes. Yep. Oh, I'm actually really glad that that's not there because it jogs my memory about something that I guess
we'll have to talk about at committee chairs just regarding the timing of the meetings 6 or 6:30. So that's move we can't discuss it. It's not on the agenda. Um but that's something I want to just know for myself. So yeah, that would be the 10th is very likely to be the next meeting. It's not in the
packet, so I can't confirm that. Um and that being said, uh can I entertain a motion to adjurnn? So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Um, all in favor? >> We have to take roll call.
>> Thank you, Councelor Gordon. All right. So, um, >> I'm here for the rules, y'all. >> And bless you for that. You know, I'm I'm a newbie chair, so I really appreciate the being kept on the straight and narrow. >> It's easier to remember it when you're not trying to chair the meeting and also around the Zoom. So, we're here for you.
>> I appreciate the grace as well. So, um I am a uh yes vote on adjourning the meeting. Councelor Bottomley, >> yes. >> Councelor Gordon, >> yes. >> That meeting the meeting is now concluded after 11 minutes. >> Is it a new record?
>> I maybe >> he's in charge of all of my meetings. >> All right. Well, have a lovely evening, folks, and I really appreciate seeing both of you and uh I'll see you in two weeks because council is not next week. >> Right. >> Right. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank
you all. Have a good night. >> Have a great evening, guys. >> See you guys.