"The goal is to promote smart growth and do it at a local, grass roots level," Doug Pizzi, spokesperson for the state's environmental affairs secretary Robert Durand, tells GlobeSt.com. "We are giving the communities the tools to deal with these issues."
These tools are web-based software programs that allow towns to do a build out analysis and, based upon the current zoning regulations and growth rates, see what they will look like if fully built out. Planners can plug in different scenarios to anticipate the impact of certain developments or they can see how zoning changes will affect the town's growth.
The tools accompany the third annual state of the environment report put out by Durand's office. The report is part of the Community Preservation Act initiative, part of a bill that Durand authored as a state senator. Pizzi says that when Durand came to his current office he wanted to call attention to the CPA issue and initiated the reports and the build out analysis of all 351 towns in the state.
"New Englanders have a difficult time getting communities to accept mandates from the top down," notes Pizzi. "We are giving the communities tools so they can channel growth in the right way." While the tools can evaluate the statistics of each town, Pizzi points out that the goal is to develop a regional approach to planning. "If you put in a 250,000-sf development it will affect neighboring towns," he says. "We don't want to become an overdeveloped state."
Pizzi emphasizes that the implications of overdevelopment are far-reaching for the state in its tourism industry and in quality of life issues. "We want to be careful not to ruin things," he says. "We want people to want to come here and live."
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