Stockbridge — As Berkshire towns wrestle with the regional shortage in housing for local firefighters, teachers, and public works employees, Lee resident Mohamed A. Zabian thinks he may be able to help.
Zabian owns the Stockbridge Industrial Park, 102 E. Main Street in Stockbridge, a rough 20-acre site that he has been slowly cleaning up over the years near the banks of the Housatonic River.
“My intention is simple,” Zabian said. “We’re at the beginning stages of thinking about doing some housing at the [Stockbridge] Industrial Park.”
The tract includes a two-family home that he said could possibly be expanded or apartments added to provide residences for municipal workers in the area. Zabian is looking at “any and all options for housing” right now. “We’re not 100 percent sure we’re going to do it, but we’re exploring every avenue,” he said.
Earlier this week, Zabian brought guests—an Allegrone Construction representative, Stockbridge Town Administrator Michael Canales, and Select Board member Patrick White—to the site. The meeting wasn’t so much about funding a possible housing project, Zabian said, but “was basically to open up the door and see, ‘Can we do this?’”
He pointed out that the location, being close to town, is ideal for not only Stockbridge municipal employees but can also serve Lee workers as well.
“We don’t even know if it’s going to work, but you have to try, right?,” Zabian said.
At the April 3 Stockbridge Select Board session, board Chair Jamie Minacci and member Ernesto “Chuckie” Cardillo voted down a proposed warrant article that would have allowed residents to decide whether the town should accept the state’s designation as a “seasonal community,” with its possibility of opening grant funding options for projects such as Zabian’s.
A “seasonal community” designation is only offered to some Cape Cod communities in addition to those Berkshire County towns with more than 40 percent of seasonal housing units. According to the 2024 Affordable Homes Act establishing the term, it is “designed to recognize Massachusetts communities that experience substantial variation in seasonal employment and to create distinctive tools to address their unique housing needs.”
If designated as a “seasonal community,” the municipality can develop housing “with a preference for municipal workers so that our public safety personnel, teachers and [Department of Public Works] and town hall workers have a place to live.” Additionally, among other provisions, the label allows such towns to create year-round housing for artists, permit tiny homes to be built “by right” for year-round residents, and increase the property tax exemption for homes that constitute the owners’ primary residence.
Besides Stockbridge, the designation has been offered locally to Alford, Becket, Hancock, Monterey, Mount Washington, Otis, and Tyringham. However, the designation is contingent on a town vote to accept it, and none of the towns offered the designation have accepted it to date. With town meetings on the horizon, time will tell whether the remaining seven Berkshire towns will put the designation to a residential vote.
Although the Executive Office of Housing and Living Communities (EOHLC) is developing guidelines for the new regulation, those guidelines haven’t been released yet, a sticking point for Minacci and Cardillo.
“My concern is that everything is coming so fast and furious, and it hasn’t been flushed out, what is the advantage,” Minacci said of the designation. She said state bylaws already provide a way for towns to develop housing with a preference for municipal employees.
The measure isn’t time sensitive, Canales said, and can be put to a town vote at any special or regular town meeting.
“I think when we put off these decisions, we take off the board some potential solutions that, frankly, take years to develop,” said White, who voted for the designation to be included in the May 19 Town Meeting. “I think this is a gift to us.”
He read a letter from Zabian at the meeting, stating Zabian’s interest in exploring the development of the Stockbridge Industrial Park as municipal housing, with “up to several dozen units of a mixed-use” project.
“I strongly believe that municipal workers add to the fabric of our communities, and it is essential if we are to ensure the long-term health and viability of our workforce,” Zabian states in the letter. That correspondence can be found here.
His letter also states that the plan “is contingent on the Town adopting the Seasonal Community designation.”
In a telephone interview, Zabian told The Berkshire Edge that he will take grants “if they’re available.” He said the project is only in the exploration phase and it is too early in the process to determine funding sources.
For White, the current “mix” of Stockbridge residents—full-timers, part-timers, families—is “great.” However, he called the trend of sales from full-time residents to part-time residents “alarming.”
Resident Patty Caya, attending the meeting virtually, said that she wasn’t against the policy but advised waiting to put the designation before voters until the EOHLC guidelines are released this summer.
For Minacci, Zabian could move forward with his proposed project without the town being designated a “seasonal community.” “I do think Mr. Zabian could build his project,” she said. “He does not need the ‘seasonal community’ designation. If, in fact, he feels pulled to do it and wants to do it, I don’t see a problem. And, if he just wants to rent to municipal employees, that is lovely.”
White responded that tax credits assist in building such projects and preferencing artists and municipal workers as tenants is “only available based on this new ‘seasonal community’ designation.” He pushed for Stockbridge to accept the designation to get a head start on the funding that might be available to seasonal communities.
Minacci voiced concern about approving the designation without having enough information from the Commonwealth explaining the regulation, including how much, if any, grant funding is available, especially in light of anticipating the designation will be expanded to 54 towns.
“How much possible money or help are we going to get if there’s 54 towns going after the same undesignated pot of money?” Minacci said.
Resident Sandy Baron agreed with Caya and Minacci. “To a degree, you don’t really know what you’re getting in this bargain,” Baron said of the designation. “You don’t want to sign onto something you may not be able to easily get out of.”
Cardillo likened the discussion to investing in a project that “isn’t set yet.” “When we rush into things, then we end up backtracking,” he said.
Minacci’s “no” vote isn’t absolute, leaving open the possibility of revisiting the article for the town’s annual meeting in November. “I think we wait until they get the information organized,” she said. “It’s not saying, ‘No.’ It says, ‘Wait a couple of months,’ that’s it… I just want to be careful with our—these decisions.”
Following the meeting, White told The Berkshire Edge he predicts the state will target $50 million to $100 million for seasonal community support, representing one to two percent of the funds allocated to the Commonwealth’s Affordable Homes Act budget, with those monies to be split between the Cape and Berkshires towns that adopt the measure. “I wanted Stockbridge to be first in line,” he said. “Now, we will be last.”
