[Massplanners] Downtown Design Guidelines

[Magoon, Steve]

Watertown contracted with David Gable and Associates to create design guidelines for us.  We first did this for large commercial and mixed use projects.  We then created a Zoning Amendment to make some provisions a requirement and others remained guidelines that we would refer to in development review.  We also added a design review component to our project review with a third party reviewer to make design recommendations.  I think it has worked well.

Steve Magoon
Assistant Town Manager, Director, Community Development and Planning
Administration Building
149 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472
Office 617 972-6417
Cell 617 987-1136



From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> On Behalf Of Christopher Ryan
Sent: Friday, July 9, 2021 9:54 AM
To: ehutchings at beverlyma.gov
Cc: massplanners at masscptc.org
Subject: Re: [Massplanners] Downtown Design Guidelines

I'll jump in too.

Particularly, I am interested in when a community adopts guidelines, do they elevate the guidlines to requirements within a special permit process?

If you have gone with requirements over guidelines, how to you facilitate that additional control?

Chris

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Christopher J. Ryan, AICP
Director of Community and Economic Development
Town of Harvard, MA
13 Ayer Road
Harvard, MA  01451
Phone: 978.456.4100 x.323
Email: cryan at harvard.ma.us<mailto:cryan at harvard.ma.us>
Web: http://www.harvard.ma.us<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fwww.harvard.ma.us&c=E,1,a-ANV-pNgAHo5cDsZ8sA6TWx3KztSPREm7ojTQMG9BfLgIvv73WKz5TySpviEobv9ua1VOrfVJ2nATmBizk3MUPZYiwMbbByOYLo989_&typo=1>
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Emily Hutchings <ehutchings at beverlyma.gov<mailto:ehutchings at beverlyma.gov>> on Thursday, July 8, 2021 at 4:55 PM -0400 wrote:
Hello All,

Has anyone recently gone through the process of updating or developing new downtown design guidelines, and would be willing to share their guidelines and/or RFPs, if you worked with a consultant?

Thank you,

--
Emily Hutchings, AICP
City of Beverly
Assistant Planning Director
978-605-2342
ehutchings at beverlyma.gov<mailto:ehutchings at beverlyma.gov>
[https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fwww.beverlyma.gov%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2019%2f05%2fcity-seal-transparency.png&c=E,1,4UALZWhpMRBo-V2wyhthdJ1GMaQI3j8urJVk5e35DjLIHq-FQxzri8shrLugVi129fgGMzA8swnJ3j-kvPJIYaKxIa_o4vmwdHxyoQg3IxSFr4c6&typ]

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