The Framingham City Council met on December 3, 2025 (the meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. on December 2 and continued past midnight) in the Blum Room. The agenda included public comments, the mayor's report, a discussion on the appointments process, a public hearing and vote on a zoning amendment to grant the City Council special permit authority for large projects, and a vote to adopt the specialized opt-in energy code. Several other items were approved unanimously.
The City Council is the sole legislative body of the city of Framingham and is therefore responsible for passing city ordinances. The city council is made up of 11 members who exercise the legislative powers of Framingham. Two of these members are known as counselors at large, and nine members are known as district counselors. The city council serves as a link between the citizens of Framingham and their municipal government. Counselors help constituents by connecting them to resources, services, and city departments. And also serve as advocates for all Framingham residents. The following city council coverage is brought to you by the government channel, a service of the City of Framingham. City Council will come to order on December 2nd, 2025 at 7 p.m. Uh in the Blum room in the Memorial Building. This is version two of the agenda posted in the public meeting portal and published in legisl I to legislate on Tuesday, December 2nd. First order of business is public participation under public participation. We have a whole bunch of folks signed up for a speaker. Everybody's gonna get three minutes. But the first speaker is Joe Simonella, 64 Nick. Oh, I don't have to give your address. Joe, you're up. Thank you, Joseph Simonelli. Nixon Road, Framingham. Um I uh wanted to talk about an item that was um, I guess uh public participation ended uh two weeks ago at the last meeting. I was out of state, and so I couldn't make the meeting. It has to do with well, it's a combination, but has to do with the um energy um special energy code that you folks are discussing. Um my background, I have a license in civil engineering, licensed and mass license structural engineering. I also have a construction supervisor's license, which is state of mass. It's also called a builder's license. Framingham's not a wealthy community. Framingham is not Lexington, Newton, Needham, Brookline, or Whalen. The renters and rents in Framingham are not the same economics as the more wealthy communities. When a developer builds, he's obviously in it for a for a payback. And when a lower rental market, the developer does not have the margins for added cost of the special energy code. And I think it will hurt development of additional rental units in Framingham and affect the tax base. The City of Boston permits are down right now. And a study was done by a local building contractor, and they compared building one beds and studios in New York City and Boston. And lo and behold, they found and they set aside um permitting costs and land costs. And they found that it was more expensive to build in Boston than it was in New York. And that has to do with all these added costs. Materials, it's a lot more expensive to bring materials into to New York City than it is to Boston. But in my lifetime, it's always been in my professional experience, New York City has always been more expensive. But that's where some of these things are taking us. And I know your hats are in the right place to help the renters and electric bills. And I think you're if you look at electric bills, your efforts would be better better serve the underprivileged renters by having mass save rules changed and electric bills for renters changed. Under Mass Save, this is my understanding that a landlord cannot participate in Mass Save. That's not true. What is the Okay? The bill has to be in your name. That's not true. Okay. Well, anyways, so but so therefore, no benefits. And renters are paying for um charging stations. Why should a renter have to pay for a charging station to be more convenient for somebody that lives in, you know, a Newton and Edom or Lexington or whatever, and to be more convenient for them. These people can't even put food in, they haven't struggling between paying electric bills and putting food on the table.