GREENFIELD — After more than an hour of public comment, City Council voted 10-1 to declare the parking lot at 53 Hope St. as surplus Wednesday evening and to draft a request for proposals (RFP) seeking a developer to build housing on the site.

The roughly 1-acre lot’s future sparked controversy among residents who spoke about the issue during the public comment portion of the meeting. Roughly half expressed support for the project, believing that it will serve as a much-needed augmentation of the city’s housing stock. Others, however, argued that the property would better serve the city if it went back to being used for parking.

The Hope Street lot previously housed a temporary firehouse while the Fire Department’s new 41 Main St. building was being constructed.

During the public comment period, resident Dawn Morin said she watched the July 8 Economic Development Committee meeting in which the committee unanimously approved plans to declare the vacant lot as surplus property and to authorize Mayor Ginny Desorgher to sell it, thus sending the idea on to the full City Council. The meeting, she said, made her “blood boil” and prompted her to organize against the project.

“After watching that meeting again, I took off in this heat for four hours and hit 120 homes in my neighborhood with flyers against the project,” Morin said. “Please don’t let them convince you that all the neighbors are excited about this.”

Others, such as Housing Greenfield Coordinator Susan Worgaftik, argued in favor of the project, noting that the city is in desperate need of housing as it aims to build more than 600 units to support the current population. Worgaftik added that while the city intends to prioritize parking as a feature of the future complex, the Hope Street lot has not been used for parking for more than three years.

“Having central housing near the library, near the Y, where people can walk to work or walk to school, is going to be a major addition to the community. I also would like to just mention that I understand the parking concerns, and those parking concerns are also about where people park on Prospect [Street], and I think that things have to be really looked at as to how we figure out how to make it so they don’t park right onto the corner,” Worgaftik said. “I’d like to point out that the request for proposals that is going to go out to developers for this will include asking potential developers what their parking plan is. One of the architects that we talked to has talked about putting parking underneath the buildings.”

City councilors, while deliberating over the project, asked Community and Economic Development Director Amy Cahillane about the project and its RFP. Specifically, Cahillane explained that the city has no obligation to accept proposals that seem unfit or lack the necessary parking accommodations. She added that the city has also expressed interest in mixed-use developments or housing complexes with a ground-floor business space.

“In the RFP, we have included priorities. … We say ‘proposed uses that complement the neighboring area,’” Cahillane said. “We can certainly change that language or add language to talk about something like a neighborhood hub, or talk about the character of this lot and the concerns of the community.”

Precinct 7 Councilor William “Wid” Perry was the sole ‘no’ vote on whether to declare the Hope Street lot as surplus property and draft an RFP for future development, arguing that the city would be sacrificing an existing parking area for the hope that a development would bring positive change to downtown Greenfield. Perry also noted he had received numerous emails from residents who live near the site, voicing their concerns for the development.

“I’m going to vote ‘no’ tonight on behalf of all the people, my coworkers, the residents who spoke tonight, the neighbors. It’s fascinating to me, because we’re talking about the Hope Street lot, and how many times have we heard, ‘We hope to get housing there. We hope that this, we hope…’” Perry said. “Well, I’m not going to talk about hope when other people already have their needs, and they’ve told us what their needs are for that neighborhood. It’s about the entire neighborhood.”

In response to Perry’s comments, City Council Vice President John Garrett countered that virtually any development aimed at improving the city’s future is built on hope. He added that the state is in a housing crisis, and a lack of adequate housing is contributing to unaffordable rent and housing prices in the city.

“We’re talking about building housing for the future, and it doesn’t exist yet. The people who don’t live there yet are not yet our neighbors, but when and if that gets built, they will enrich our community. They will be doctors, they’ll be nurses, maybe they’ll be teachers, maybe they’ll work in the shops downtown,” Garrett said. “When we are building anything, we’re building on hope — that’s the foundation to the work of city government. We have a housing crisis right now, and it’s not going to be solved tomorrow. It’s not going to be solved by building a couple of units on the Hope Street lot. … Those 600 units would stabilize the cost of housing in this town.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.