Amherst Council Weighs Zoning for Hampshire Campus
The Amherst Town Council brainstormed zoning priorities for roughly 200 acres of the Hampshire College campus, with no formal votes beyond adjournment.
Select Board · Meeting of August 31, 2026
AMHERST — The Amherst Town Council brainstormed zoning priorities for roughly 200 acres of the Hampshire College campus, with no formal votes beyond adjournment. All 13 councilors took turns citing housing, especially starter homes and workforce housing, as their top priority for the site, which Hampshire College will stop operating as a degree-granting institution after December 2026. Councilor Lynn Griesemer warned that UMass Amherst has already lost 200 incoming graduate students amid a 10 percent drop in research funding and said flatly, "absolutely no data centers." Consultants from Horsley Witten Group and Dodson & Flinker, funded through the state agency MassDevelopment, said roughly 200 acres have relatively few building constraints and are targeting a complete zoning proposal for the council by January, with councilors told the town's outer deadline to adopt new rules is 2030.
Councilor Cathy Shane pressed the team: "Can we zone in a way that it can't be rezoned to be all non-taxable?" The council adjourned at 8:47 p.m. on a unanimous 13-0 roll call.
In the full story:
- Who Was There
- Organizations And Documents Referenced
- The complete report — 2,867 words
Source: the Select Board meeting of August 31, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.
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