Stockbridge — As with many other towns within the Commonwealth, Stockbridge is undertaking revising municipal bylaws to conform with a state mandate that went into effect last month.
On March 6, the Stockbridge Select Board remanded a proposed accessory dwelling unit (ADU) bylaw back to the town’s Planning Board to set the draft for public hearing. An ADU is a rentable housing unit—much like an in-law apartment such as a backyard cottage or basement dwelling—with its own entrance that lies on the same lot as a main home or is attached to the primary house.
The process was the result of a new Affordable Homes Act signed into law in August that went live February 2, legislation intended to provide more than 65,000 homes within the Commonwealth by 2029. Aiming to tackle rising housing costs, the law denies municipalities the ability to unreasonably restrict ADUs.
The Stockbridge draft bylaw provides that an ADU is “permitted as of right” within a one-family home except in the town’s business district where an ADU is allowed within a home only if the main dwelling unit and the ADU are located above the building’s ground floor. Otherwise, if the main home and ADU are detached from each other but on the same lot, the configuration is allowed within all of Stockbridge’s zoning categories.
According to Stockbridge’s proposed bylaw, an ADU can’t be larger than half of the gross floor area of the main home or 900 square feet, whichever is smaller, and an ADU isn’t allowed to be used as a short-term rental (STR). Therefore, an ADU rental term must be for more than 31 days.
Stockbridge’s draft also includes a requirement that an ADU “must remain accessory to a Principal Dwelling,” meaning an ADU must be located on the same lot as the owner’s main home and can’t be situated on a different tract.
A copy of the Stockbridge draft ADU bylaw can be found here.
Select Board member Patrick White voiced concerns over the proposal. “I find that there’s a number of things in this law that are either duplicative of the state requirement or actually not necessarily family friendly,” he said.
According to White, the town’s STR bylaw prohibits professionally managed units, “which means that nobody can rent two units at once if they’re not a resident of the town.” He questioned the portion of the proposal that bans an ADU from also being a short-term rental.
“In the case of an ADU, [that situation] would help someone like me who’s single, living in this house alone, and I could move into the ADU and rent my house out as a short-term rental, but it would hurt a family of five who couldn’t fit into their ADU and rent their house out,” White said. “So, right now the way this is structured, [it’s] banning the ADUs from being short-term rentals but it’s not banning the regular units.”
He suggested repealing the current bylaw and not restricting ADUs from being STRs as well as considering the difficulty of enforcing both STR and ADU bylaws.
However, Select Board Chair Jamie Minacci said White’s questions would be better asked at the public hearing as the Select Board’s role is to send the draft back to the Planning Board.
According to Town Administrator Michael Canales, the Planning Board must hold a public hearing on the proposal within 65 days of the draft being submitted by the Select Board, with the measure returning to the Select Board with comments before ultimately being voted on at a town meeting.
Town warrant to include vote on Specialized Code, climate leader community action
At the meeting, the Select Board agreed to put to the voters at a town meeting whether to accept an option for Stockbridge to implement a higher tier, or “Specialized Code,” of green community status than its current “Stretch Code.”
The action followed a presentation from Chris Mason, Western Massachusetts regional coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER), who outlined the measure’s provisions that would only apply to new construction residences. This code involves promoting all-electric homes to decrease community reliance on fossil fuels and adding solar panels to offset homes designed with the use of natural gas.
A copy of Mason’s presentation can be found here.
Budget updates
Canales said the initial Draft FY 2026 Capital and Operational Budget concerns are being addressed, including evaluating room and meal tax assessments, tree budget, litigation funds, and Pine Street tennis court expenditures.
A joint meeting between Stockbridge’s Finance Committee and Select Board to discuss the upcoming budget is scheduled for March 26, at 6 p.m.
