City Council Order-21.343-Surplus City Land for Affordable Housing off Crafts Avenue-CertifiedCity of Northampton
MASSACHUSETTS
_________
In City Council, October 21, 2021
Upon the recommendation of Mayor David J. Narkewicz and Planning & Sustainability
21.343 An Order to Surplus City Land for Affordable Housing and Community Resilience Hub off
Crafts Avenue
WHEREAS, Consistent with the Sustainable Northampton Comprehensive Plan, Open Space,
Recreation, and Multi-Use Trail Plan, Housing Needs Assessment and Strategic
Housing Plan, and Unlocking Opportunity: An Assessment of Barriers to Fair
Housing, the city has a comprehensive affordable housing program, including
limited development, funding, regulatory incentives, and surplusing of city land;
WHEREAS, Consistent with the Climate Resilience and Regeneration Plan, Community
Resilience Building Findings, and Mayor’s Task Force on Panhandling, the city
has a program to create a Community Resilience Hub as a downtown facility with
a coordinated program for frontline communities and any residents who face
chronic and acute stress due to disasters, pandemics, climate change, and other
social and economic challenges. It will serve the 1% (homeless and those with
severe chronic stress), the 15% (below the poverty line), the 40% (housing-
burdened and under chronic stress) and the 100% (those at risk of acute adverse
events), by providing access to resource, a social network, and building social
resilience;
WHEREAS, Downtown studio apartments are especially important to help transition people who
are experiencing houselessness or who face extreme housing burdens;
WHEREAS, The city has made offers for the Roundhouse and for St. John Cantius Church and
explored other options for a community resilience hub, while exploring a back-up
option of developing a hub in a new building, potentially co-located with
affordable housing;
WHEREAS, The city’s property extending from the Puchalski Municipal Office Building to the
Roundhouse bus station driveway to Crafts Avenue, to the southerly most parking
spaces in the city hall parking lot potentially is viable for affordable housing
studios and/or a community resilience hub;
Ordered, that
City Council declares this land surplus to city needs;
Further that the Mayor is authorized to transfer deeds, easements, and/or leases for the land for
affordable housing and/or a community resilience hub, subject to restrictions and conditions that
the Mayor imposes to accomplish these needs.