Council Subcommittee OKs Pittsfield Affordable Housing Trust

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The city is looking to adopt an affordable housing trust to create and preserve accessible housing in the community.

On Monday, the Ordinances and Rules subcommittee unanimously voted in favor of the trust. It will be sent to the full council next week.

"Basically it's a mechanism that communities can adopt as a way to help create affordable housing, and there's a whole host of ways it can do that," City Planner CJ Hoss explained.  

"But the fund is overseen by a board of trustees, which would then be created by this ordinance if you adopt it, and this isn't something that's overly unique. There aren't many communities in the Berkshires that have it, but over 120 communities in Massachusetts have adopted an affordable housing trust fund. Locally, Williamstown, Great Barrington, and Lenox are the primary exemptions."

This proposal dates back to the re-zoning of Downtown Pittsfield as a creative district in April of last year. The new designation included an inclusionary zoning layer that required residential developers over a certain amount of units to provide affordable housing.

"This is a great ordinance," Ward 7 Councilor Anthony Maffuccio said. "And we are in dire need of affordable housing in this community, there's too much market-rate apartments going up and not enough affordable housing going up."

An affordable housing trust fund is one of the prescriptive ways that a developer can meet that goal, Hoss explained, as they can contribute to it if they aren't going to provide affordable units.

At the time of the Downtown Creative District's approval, the city had not created a trust but promised that it would be done in the next year.

The creative district zoning aims to support a vibrant, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly urban downtown, determine the best way for the city of Pittsfield through its land-use boards to control the appearance of future development in the downtown, and replace existing overlay and underlying districts with a form-based code.

It removed and replaced the downtown arts overlay district and the downtown business zoning district.

Pittsfield Holds Second Master Plan Workshop

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:43PM / Wednesday, April 01, 2026

Participants added notes to the sectors — such as transportation, open space and neighborhoods — being reviewed by the Master Plan Steering Committee. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass.— The city is about halfway through developing its new master plan, and held a second community workshop this past Thursday. 

"Basically, we're talking to people from Pittsfield and trying to figure out, among a broad sector of issues that affect us, what is our goal and vision for the next 10 years, where we want Pittsfield to be in 10 years, and what changes do we want to see?" Director of Community Development Justine Dodds explained to about 20 community members and city staff at Conte Community School. 

"That will be broken down into some goals and objectives and then some measurable action items that we can all take as a community to move that forward."  

The Pittsfield Master Plan is the policy guide for future physical development, covering land use, infrastructure, sustainability, and more. The plan was last updated in 2009, and Pittsfield has engaged the VHB engineering firm and CommunityScale consultants to bring it through 2036. 

There have been two public listening sessions, a Master Plan Advisory Committee guiding the work, and small focus groups for each section. On poster boards, residents were able to see and mark the draft goals and actions under six themes: economic development, housing opportunities, transportation and infrastructure, environment and open space, neighborhoods and community, and governance and collaboration. 

In November 2025, community members participated in a similar exercise at City Hall. 

Transportation and infrastructure had several notes on them. Suggestions included using infrastructure to address the urban heat island effect, a light rail system, and continuing to implement Complete Streets standards for roadway construction projects. 

"I want to ride my bike to my friend's house safely," one respondent wrote. 

Under economic development, people suggested digital business infrastructure for the downtown, food hall opportunities, and nightlife opportunities.