I would like to thank Mary Sirum for her recent column on affordable housing [“Careful about impact of more affordable housing,” Aug. 3]. We have not had a real discussion about this issue in Greenfield. What we have had is commentary about zoning and assumptions about what various types of housing would do to different parts of town.

We have, to my knowledge, never had a plan for housing development, but have left it “up to the market” to determine the types and location of housing.

I agree that we need a strong planning process and am pleased to say that we will soon have that opportunity. The city of Greenfield will be unveiling the results of a housing study on Sept. 12 (specifics of the meeting are not yet available) that, I hope, will lead to a full discussion of this issue.

Greenfield needs approximately 600 more units of housing based on a UMass Donahue Institute study that stated that Franklin County needs approximately 2,500 units. Since Greenfield has approximately a quarter of the county’s population, approximately one-fourth of the units needed should be here.

A significant portion of that housing should be “affordable” in accordance with an annual study done by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that is scaled for household size. A household of five people requires more income than that of one or two people. The HUD information tells us the amount of income a household is expected to have to be able to afford a reasonable lifestyle in our region.

A key assumption is that households should pay no more than 30% of their income for rent/mortgage and utilities including heat and electricity. If you are paying more than 30% of your income for these things, you are “cost burdened.”

Cost-burdened households may have a roof over their heads, but they often pay 50% or more of monthly income for housing. They often don’t have the money they need for clothing, food or health care, and they certainly are not going out to eat. This hurts our local businesses. It makes health care costs rise because folks may wait for an illness to get very bad before getting care. And, of course, they could become homeless.

Cost-burdened people include the very poor and people living on low fixed incomes, as you would expect. They are also city employees, teachers, firefighters, workers at stores, other people you see on the street. They worry about the price of gas and winter heating bills, food prices and the cost of living. They are us.

We need to consider the infrastructure that new homes require. Our water and sewer pipes are old and need to be rehabilitated for today’s standards. The parking study that the column writer mentioned also is key. That study, which did not include the Hope Street parking lot or the skate park because they were not available parking areas, stated that at peak times Greenfield’s parking is 45% unused.

Forty-five percent of the parking spaces are unused! Let’s look at the housing study and the parking study in tandem and figure out where we could put some new housing. It could remove asphalt, not trees. It could increase the number of units of housing without removing a blade of grass.

People live in Greenfield for its rural and small-town qualities, but there are more than 100 privately owned taxpaying empty lots that are not designated as farmland, pastures, or forests. Could those be used for new homes — rentals, homeownership, cooperatives and condominiums, some affordable according to HUD guidelines, some market rate? We need it all.

We need a thoughtful response to Greenfield’s housing crisis. Housing prices are rising, for both rentals and owned homes. In comparison to eastern Massachusetts, our expensive houses seem inexpensive.

There are speculators offering cash to sell our homes to them so they can keep the houses off the market and wait for prices to rise. We have abandoned properties that should be fixed up and put back on the market. We need to build housing that was not there before, like the Wilsons (now called the Putnam) project.

We need it all and sooner rather than later. Please add your ideas to the discussion. And if you own one of those vacant lots or parking lots, consider your options and how they fit into a housing plan that would benefit all of us. All voices are needed to create a plan that works for all of us.

Susan Worgaftik lives in Greenfield and is coordinator of Housing Greenfield, Greenfield’s housing advocacy organization.