Around midnight on March 20, 2019, the Greenfield City Council voted 9-3 to authorize borrowing for a new library. The Recorder wrote that this ended “weeks of wrangling that culminated by swapping relaxed commercial development rules for library votes.”

That ninth library vote came at a price. The president of the City Council offered a “deal” to an anti-library councilor to induce him to vote“yes” on the library. The councilor got the French King environmental overlay district shrunk to two streets, and “relaxed” Major Development Review (MDR) criteria throughout the city. This deal was hailed as a “grand compromise” in the news media: weaker environmental rules in return for a new library.

Several public commenters called this “vote swap” a chance to “bring about peace in Greenfield and put the past to rest.” The overlay zone was killed first, then the MDR was narrowed. Then the council approved the library borrowing by a one-vote margin.

One key MDR development review threshold — the number of average daily car trips (ADTs) — was tripled from 1,000 to 3,000 so fewer projects would be subject to the MDR. The City Council president admitted during the debate: “I cannot tell you there was evidence-based study on this.”

Four years after this “grand compromise” vote, we have seen no “compromise,” and no “peace” came to Greenfield. Our development rules regarding large retail projects were eviscerated. A New York state developer applied to build a national chain store on land at the edge of Greenfield west of the rotary, offering an unimpressive box footprint almost half an acre in size, with a 97-car parking lot, at the end of a dead-end road with houses.

The City Council vote of 2019 enabled this project to bypass the MDR entirely, because it generated 2,120 car trips daily, below the new 3,000 ADT threshold.

The developer described this 19,483-square-foot grocery as “a design you see all over the place,” which is precisely the problem. The building will generate 181.45 tons of greenhouse gas annually. It will have a “solar ready” roof — but no solar panels (“Aldi’s does not do solar”). As state Sen. Paul Mark recalled being told recently: “Any new building that is built without solar on top of it is a sin.”

At the Aug. 3 Planning Board site plan hearing, only two regular members were present. The grocery project did not require a special permit, no fiscal impact report on jobs, no requirement to avoid or minimize impacts on Smead Brook and wetlands.

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This section of the Mohawk Trail has had 47 accidents over a five-year study, and has been described as having “a higher rate of accidents … with hazardous intersections.” Chapter 550-2(c)(2) of the Planning Board’s rules allows them to hire “the services of an outside consultant” — paid for by the developer. Aldi’s will generate 394,200 added cars yearly to one of the worst traffic choke points in the county. The developer and Planning Board ignored 14,309 square feet of retail space now empty at the Big Y plaza, which, when leased, could increase the traffic impacts by 74% based on added building size. It was a very “relaxed” review.

The Planning Board’s rules (chapter 500-4.B ) say they can request the applicant to make modifications in the proposed design of the project. If the site plan does not comply with our zoning purposes and requirements, “it may be disapproved.” If any part of an application is “incomplete,” the board can “dismiss” an application.

But this project got a “get out of MDR rules” card. The board never read the July 31 state report on the Aldi’s site, which repeated many of the issues flagged in the 22-page analysis I submitted.

The Greenfield City Council promised a new library would bring more people downtown to shop. Yet at the same time, we allow chain stores to locate near Interstate 91, pulling “leaked sales” from our downtown.

The City Council can repair our compromised development rules by:

■Lowering our MDR threshold back to 1,000 daily car trips.

■Requiring developers to submit detailed plans, and underwrite the cost of the city hiring its own licensed professionals — working for the city — to analyze the project.

■Requiring assessors to report all tax abatements given to corporate landowners. (Since 2013, this developer received 12 property tax abatements, costing the city $39,967.)

■Creating “incentive zones” downtown to recruit new retailers to our shopping/entertainment district.

■Preserving undeveloped marginal parcels on the edge of Greenfield for open space, not for concrete and asphalt sprawl.

Al Norman’s Pushback column appears in the Recorder every third Wednesday. Comments can be shared at info@sprawl-busters.com.