[Massplanners] Dynamic Master Plan

[Schreiber, Gideon]

In Watertown, the last plan was completed in 2015 and we just did a substantial update started in 2022 and approved yesterday by the Planning Board and endorsed by the City Council.  The update included a confirmation of the existing vision but not a full process around that as well as specific focus on key chapters/elements to ensure they are reflective of current conditions and trends (and pandemics) that were not planned for in the previous plan.   We have and will use it as a policy document for guiding critical implementation and it now references a number of recently approved plans without repeating all of the specific strategies in those topic specific plans.  It also included a OSRP update with a shared public process to ensure they were coordinated and consistent.  The 6-8 year timeline for doing updates allows for revisiting assumptions, baseline date,  and general conversation about the plan and the goals.  This timeframe is common in other states like Washington State were it is mandated by state law.  With a more frequent revisiting of the plans, goals and strategies can be updated to be a better guide and coordinated with the community's Zoning, CIP and other implementation tools.

Hope this helps,
Gideon

Gideon Schreiber, AICP, Assistant Director of Planning

Community Development & Planning
City of Watertown, 149 Main Street, Watertown, MA 02472
(617) 972-6417 ext 12164

When responding, please be aware that the Massachusetts Secretary of State has determined that most email is public record and therefore cannot be kept confidential.

-----Original Message-----
From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> On Behalf Of Lauren.Drago via MassPlanners
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2023 11:41 AM
To: Katrina O'leary <katrina.oleary at middletonma.gov>
Cc: massplanners at masscptc.org
Subject: Re: [Massplanners] Dynamic Master Plan

Hi,


A couple thoughts to share but I'm not entirely sure it will be helpful for your specific context.


In Somerville, we updated SomerVision, the city's comprehensive plan 10 years in. In the end it kind of felt like we wrote a new plan informed by the old one. Not a bad thing, necessarily, it was a good process to reconnect as a community and update the whole shebang, but an incremental mini update was probably impossible in that situation.


In Lynn, we just finished our first comp plan, and one decision we made at the outset is that we would only focus on foundational, 20-year "stuff" and ditch the deep topic level chapters entirely. We didn't want a housing chapter when we had just written a housing production plan, and we thought a chapter on open space would duplicate our upcoming OSRP update. Ultimately we hope this will help us "update" topics as time goes on without having to revisit the big-picture vision we created. When the new city website launches, Vision Lynn will live alongside all of our other current plans as a package deal.


Lauren


Lauren Drago, AICP

Associate Planning Director

City of Lynn

Lauren.Drago at LynnMA.gov<mailto:Lauren.Drago at LynnMA.gov> | cell: 617-869-5271

________________________________
From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> on behalf of Katrina O'leary via MassPlanners <massplanners at masscptc.org>
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2023 9:40:18 AM
To: Listserv (massplanners at masscptc.org)
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [Massplanners] Dynamic Master Plan


Do any communities update their Master Plan more regularly than every 10 -20 years?  My Master Plan committee chair is wonderful - and creative.  He proposed updating new chapters of the Master Plan every couple of years so it is always "current."  I see many problems with this, mostly due to the fact that the citizen engagement for each of these regular updates wouldn't be as robust as a Master Plan update done every decade or more.   There would also be a lack of the overall "vision" that is so important to focus on while updating your plan.



I told him I'd post the question on the listserv to see if any communities had experience with more dynamic Master Plans.



Do any communities update their Master Plan piece by piece on a regular basis?  Has it worked for you?



Katrina O'Leary, AICP

Middleton Town Planner

195 North Main Street     Middleton, MA   01949     PH: (978)777-8917

When responding, please be aware that the Massachusetts Secretary of State has determined that most email is public record and, therefore, cannot be kept confidential.





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