WESTFIELD – The City Council Legislative and Ordinance subcommittee met at South Middle School last night and one item on their agenda was to redefine the term family, relative to zoning.
City Planner Jay Vinskey and Community Development Director Peter Miller met with L&O members Mary O’Connell of Ward 4, James R. Adams of Ward 6 and Chairman Christopher Keefe of Ward 1, to continue the discussion of what exactly constitutes a family unit, as it relates to the number of unrelated people residing in a home or apartment together.
“The city hasn’t enforced an ordinance limiting the number of unrelated individuals that live together in a single dwelling,” Miller said.
The ordinance’s current definition of a family is “any number of persons within the second degree of kindred living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit”, and goes on to say that the word “family” in the definition also includes “residents of a residential rehabilitation center and foster children.”
As the student body at Westfield State University has grown in recent years, so too has the population of students residing off-campus in downtown Westfield, and the generic wording of the current zoning ordinance has created an issue in need of addressing, one that O’Connell says the city’s Law Department is uncomfortable taking to court to address.
Miller and Vinskey believe two routes can be taken in changing the definition: a “quick and simple avenue to make the definition look like that of other communities” or “to do a little more of an overhaul under a new section to create new permitting.”
“It’s not up to date with the college students and how people live today,” Vinskey said of the ordinance’s definition. “Four people may equal a ‘family’, eight people may equal ‘two families’. It’s more of a density distribution issue than a ‘who’s related to who?'”
According to Miller, there are 98 properties housing Westfield State students off-campus within the city, the majority of which fall within the city’s Residential B criteria, and many of which, under the current family definition, would be in need of a lodging house permit, since Residential B zones can only accommodate “single family, detached, semi-detached and two family dwellings of medium densities.”
The city’s “dwelling” definition refers to single and two-family dwellings as buildings on a lot designed and occupied exclusively as a residence for one or two families, respectively.
“It doesn’t technically meet what’s happening, but it’s the only avenue we have available to allow four or more people to live in a single dwelling unit,” Miller said of the lodging house permit.
“It doesn’t fall into the lodging house category. That deals with transient coming and going, where this is kind of semi-permanent or permanent,” Vinskey said of the city’s growing off-campus student populous.
Miller also pointed out that the Hampshire county town of Amherst, home to the University of Massachusetts’ flagship campus and it’s nearly 22,000 undergraduate students, has redefined their family definition to a “four unrelated limit” to suppress the number of overcrowded off-campus student apartments within the town.
Vinsky also threw out a middle ground idea of a separate category for “congregate” or “semi-permanent” properties designed specifically for students.
“It’s a slippery slope. They both have issues,” Keefe said in reference to the ideas being proposed by Miller and Vinskey. “I have a single family ranch across the street from me with a married couple with six kids, so I’m not sure they’d meet the density requirement.”
“There would have to be a relations clause (for an actual family),” he said. “But it’s doable.”
“The first idea is quick and easy, but we want an ordinance that will do the job,” said O’Connell, to which Miller agreed, saying he personally believes that four residents in a dwelling is a livable number.
“Three is a little bit difficult, because you have two bedroom apartments. A lot of people do,” he said. “When I was in college, we had four people in a two bedroom apartment and it was nothing too crazy.”
When asked by O’Connell if that would be for all Westfielders, Miller said that four residents would become the new definition for the city should a plan be accepted.
In western Massachusetts, other cities and towns with institutions of higher education, including Northampton (Smith College) and South Hadley (Mount Holyoke College), define a family under the Amherst standard of no more than four residents.
Other cities hold different standards, such as Springfield, home of five higher ed institutions, which defines family as “an individual or two or more persons related by genetics, adoption or marriage, living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit or a group of three or fewer persons who are or who are not related by genetics, adoption or marriage, living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit.”
Pittsfield goes to the other end of the spectrum, stating that no more than eight unrelated people constitute a family.
The committee is set to discuss the matter again at the end of the month or in early October.
“It’s being brought out for defensive purposes,” said Keefe, after the meeting. “If Amherst is doing it… it can add clarity.”
“We’re trying to be helpful so that people know what the expectations are when moving here,” said O’Connell.
“There’s a broader issue,” said Vinskey following the meeting’s conclusion. “Currently, four college students (living off campus) should have a lodging house permit. We’re just looking at redefining what a ‘family’ is.”
Follow Peter Francis on Twitter at @PeterFrancisWNG
