HADLEY — Developers interested in bringing a 55-and-over housing project to a 45-acre site between North Maple Street and Rocky Hill Road, and to a portion of the Hampton Inn Barn Shops property near the Coolidge Bridge, may seek zoning changes at upcoming Town Meetings.

With East Street Commons, the town’s only 55-and-over housing development complete with 35 homes, and limited opportunity for similar developments in the senior housing overlay district along Route 9, the Planning Board on Tuesday was informed by Amherst attorney Thomas Reidy that his clients would like to both expand the district and make changes to the current rules to accommodate denser development.

For Amherst developer Barry Roberts, who is examining the so-called Babb property, the zoning change would mean expanding the overlay district to encompass a new area bounded by Route 9, the Route 116 bypass, Rocky Hill and North Maple. This would allow single- and two-family homes in what might be called the “rural district” of the senior housing overlay district., Reidy said.

“This would be a less dense, more single-family and two-family, over-55 development in this area,” Reidy said.

“Similar to East Street Commons, just in a different location, that’s what he’s looking for,” Reidy added.

Previously the former farmland had been eyed for a 232 large-scale apartment complex of two-story cottages and three-story townhomes.

The other zoning change would be to tweak the rules to allow 50 units in a building in the existing 55-and over district, which the Parmar family would like for the Hampton Inn Barn Shops site. “That’s where we’d see a bigger building with more units in that building,” Reidy said.

Reidy said housing is needed and, because it is for seniors, would be low impact, with few school-age children likely. The town stipulates that such developments have 15% affordable housing. “It seems like low-hanging fruit for the town, for the board, to try to incentive developers in a couple of different ways to actually put the over-55 housing in town,” Reidy said.

The senior housing overlay district was adopted by voters in 2008 and has included certain limits, such as not being more than 5% of the town’s 1,665 housing units, and also prohibiting apartment-style buildings.

Planning Board Chairman James Maksimoski said upping the cap to 10% would make sense, as the experience with East Street Commons is that it’s a nice development and residents seem happy there.

“I’m flabbergasted at the price they’re willing to pay, but they are, that’s their business, and so on and so forth,” Maksimoski said.

When the bylaw was originally brought forward, board member Joseph Zgrodnik said a concern for Hadley was about being inundated by over 55-projects, based on the experience in Easthampton, where some had gotten underway and then weren’t completed as developers ran out of money.

“I think it’s an interesting proposal,” said Planning Board Clerk William Dwyer.

Dwyer said a focus could be on the potential for 50 units in a structure, as that could be potentially scale changing for the town.

Kishore Parmar said a concept brought forth previously depicted a 48,200-square-foot, three-story building set on the property that includes a Hampton Inn motel a Manny’s Appliances store and several other business scattered in buildings there.

Dwyer said whether there is sufficient time to have a zoning amendment prepared for the fall Town Meeting warrant is uncertain. “It is really ambitious that this will be ready for October.”

Reidy, though, said an extension of the senior housing overlay district could be done quickly, and then the more significant changes that would tweak the district’s rules would happen in the spring.

But the proposal also comes as the Planning Board is working with Pioneer Valley Planning Commission on a smart growth zoning district that would broaden the housing stock in town. That so-called Chapter 40R zoning district may be ready to bring to voters in spring 2025.

The last effort to amend the senior housing overlay district came in 2019, when Roberts sought to buy a 9½-acre property owned by Donald Dion at 28 Middle St. so that 28 more homes could be built as the Middle Street Commons, with each home to sell for $400,000 to $600,000. That failed to even get one-third support, needing two-thirds of voters to support to pass, with critics contending that around 388 acres were already available in the district.

With a stipulation that affordable housing be included, Maksimoski said Roberts and the Parmars would be required to have those built on site, rather than making a payment in lieu to an affordable housing trust, which the board has found unworkable.

“Whatever the ownership is — individual, rentals, whatever it might be — I would insist that the inclusionary zoning aspect be built and utilized on site and no money donated to a fund, because that’s turning into a nightmare,” Maksimoski said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.