Our speaker last week was Cornelius (CJ) Hoss, the Community Planning Program Manager at Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. He has over 15 years of public and private sector experience in development review, zoning, overall code analysis, grant writing, and short-term and long-term planning. Until December he was the City of Pittsfield’s City Planner, a position he held for 11 ½ years. In that role you likely saw him working with the Community Development Board, City Council, the Historical Commission, and the Community Preservation Committee. Mr. Hoss explained that our region is in a severe housing crisis as there is much more need than availability. He suggests the area is short some 7,100 housing units. Help is needed with networking to get the message out to those that can assist in some way with this concern. There are many complex issues faced by the those involved in housing development from zoning matters to local, state and federal regulations. While the area has lost over 20,000 citizens over the years, the problem remains as most of the available housing is way out of the price range for many people and new housing units have mostly been single family homes. Certainly much work by the community, both public and private will be needed to curtail this growing concern for our area.Howdy, Hoss
Our speaker last week was Cornelius (CJ) Hoss, the Community Planning Program Manager at Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. He has over 15 years of public and private sector experience in development review, zoning, overall code analysis, grant writing, and short-term and long-term planning. Until December he was the City of Pittsfield’s City Planner, a position he held for 11 ½ years. In that role you likely saw him working with the Community Development Board, City Council, the Historical Commission, and the Community Preservation Committee. Mr. Hoss explained that our region is in a severe housing crisis as there is much more need than availability. He suggests the area is short some 7,100 housing units. Help is needed with networking to get the message out to those that can assist in some way with this concern. There are many complex issues faced by the those involved in housing development from zoning matters to local, state and federal regulations. While the area has lost over 20,000 citizens over the years, the problem remains as most of the available housing is way out of the price range for many people and new housing units have mostly been single family homes. Certainly much work by the community, both public and private will be needed to curtail this growing concern for our area.