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Month: June 2025

Planning for Amherst’s Housing Future

Posted on by alisa@barrettplanningllc.com

In Spring 2024, the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts, hired Barrett Planning Group to create a new Housing Production Plan that exceeds state requirements and reflects the unique dynamics of Amherst’s housing market. This Plan serves as a roadmap for future housing development, preservation, programs, and policy decisions. Over the past year, we collaborated with Town staff and the Affordable Housing Trust to develop a comprehensive, data-driven plan that includes a Housing Needs Analysis, an assessment of development barriers and opportunities, and clearly defined goals and feasible strategies.

Amherst’s last Housing Production Plan was adopted in 2013 and was followed shortly thereafter by a housing market analysis. Since then, the Town has made meaningful strides to support both market-rate and affordable housing. To build on that momentum, we collaborated with Town staff over the past year to develop a new, comprehensive, data-rich plan.

Our analysis drew from public and private data sources to assess Amherst’s current housing stock and housing market conditions and forecast future needs. We explored housing challenges faced by a wide range of residents: college students and employees, seniors, young families, people with disabilities, immigrants, and essential workers. We also examined zoning policies, development barriers, time-to-occupancy metrics, and homelessness data from local service providers.

Community input played a vital role. We held public forums, conducted a town-wide online survey, and facilitated focus groups with key stakeholders, including human service providers, educators, business leaders, and student advocates. Their insights shaped the housing goals and strategies outlined in the plan, which address a variety of housing types—from single-family homes and rentals to condos and senior living options. We also identified priority development sites and zoning districts to support these initiatives. In addition, we expanded our engagement process to make room for a talented UMass-Amherst graduate student, her professor, and her colleagues to conduct a scenario planning process for housing development. 

The Planning Board and the Town Council approved the Plan in December 2025. This Plan equips Amherst with the tools and vision to meet its evolving housing needs and remain inclusive, affordable, and resilient for years.

Town of Lee Historic Properties Survey

Posted on by alisa@barrettplanningllc.com

We are thrilled to share some exciting news from Barrett Planning Group! With the recent addition of Jennifer Doherty, Preservation Planner to our team, we have begun offering a range of Historic Preservation services. What better way to kick things off than by partnering with the Town of Lee, Massachusetts, on an historic resources survey project. Thanks to Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds, this project will focus on Lee’s Little Italy neighborhood. Located south of Lee’s historic downtown, Little Italy was settled in the early twentieth century by Italian immigrants coming to work at a nearby marble quarry.

Southern Berkshire County had several active quarries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Marble quarries in Lee contributed stone to prominent buildings around the country, including the Washington Monument, the U.S. Capitol, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The quarries attracted Italian immigrants who had worked with stone in their native land.

As in many Massachusetts communities, the Lee Historical Commission began documenting the Town’s historic resources on Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) inventory forms in the 1960s. Lee’s initial survey efforts were “wide but shallow” – major historic resources such as public buildings and the Town’s oldest and best-preserved buildings were documented, but often with very little information about the role of the historic resource in the community. Early researchers also lacked the easy access to documentary records that the Internet provides researchers today.

More recently, the Lee Historical Commission has been revisiting its previous survey. Barrett Planning Group’s work in the Little Italy neighborhood represents a second phase of this effort. Currently, the area has almost no inventory forms on record. The neighborhood features a mix of single- and multi-family houses, many of which have undergone maintenance-related changes such as replacement siding and windows. However, due to minimal infill development, the area reflects its historic early-twentieth-century character. Conversations with residents also revealed the loss of at least two small neighborhood stores, further highlighting the importance of documenting the area’s history.

Barrett Planning Group will prepare new Massachusetts Historical Commission inventory forms for the Little Italy area, with a focus on the residents who made the neighborhood a community. We will also review resources for potential listing in the National Register of Historic Places so the Lee Historical Commission can make well-informed decisions about protection options in the future. This project is an exciting step toward preserving the unique character of Lee and we are delighted to be part of it.

If your community could benefit from our expertise in preservation planning, please contact Jenn Doherty, jenn@barrettplanningllc.com.