Q&A explains background
The progress toward shaping a guide for Arlington’s future until at least 2025 is about “one-third done” and “less than two years” from completion, top town planning officials say.
Much of the draft of Arlington’s first full-scale master plan in years — on the town’s website now at links here — drew initial public discussion Thursday Nov. 7, in the Senior Center, as about 65 people attended.
A majority of those present were members of Town Meetings as well as most of the Redevelopment Board. Both bodies must vote on the plan after it’s done, expected in 2015.
Based on an interview this week with Carol Kowalski, town planning director, and Ted Fields, the town’s economic-development planner, YourArlington is publishing the following series of points aimed at helping to understand the process so far.
OPINION: LET’S TALK
What the public was to expect Nov. 7
Judi Barrett, RKG Associates, the town’s master plan consultant, presented a report about existing conditions in town. That is, what is true here now. (As of Nov. 7, all were available online except the report about land use.)
Barrett offered reports about current realities in these areas: land use, transportation, economic development, housing, open space and recreation, historic and cultural resources and public facilities.
But a master plan also means moving toward what a community wants for itself — not just what is true, but what might be — so Barrett also presented a draft for the plan’s vision and goals. Read it here >>
Attendees participated in roundtable discussion for input on content, as was the case in earlier workshops. The aim: to “build on what we have done to date,” she said.
So far, how many people have been involved in this process?
“At least more than 300,” Kowalski said, a number that does not include town department heads. About 42,000 people live in Arlington.
The town’s website says that in June, more than 200 people participated in workshops and about 1,200 people responded to a survey based on the results of the kickoff forum held in October 2012. Read a summary of that Town Hall meeting here >>
Who creates this long-term guide?
“The community creates the master plan,” Kowalski said. “We are eager to hear” from the public.
Is the Planning Department is driving the process, as a few claim.
“We’re helping the community” arrive at a master plan, Fields said. Kowalski added: “We have to do, not just say.”
Who is putting the variety of public feedback in shape for the consultant?
The 11-person Master Plan Advisory Committee, chaired by Monica G. Tibbits-Nutt, executive director of the 128 Business Council, a transportation consultancy, and Charles A. Kalauskas, president and CEO of BCS Group, an engineering consultancy.
See the other committee members here >>
Should the public fear the creation of a new master plan?
Kowalski responded that the public “should be more afraid of what might happen” if the town does not pursue this process. “We don’t want to react” to events as they come.
Fields added, “We want to be proactive.”
The draft at the Nov. 7 meeting is a look at the “first capture” of the information, she added. “No one need be afraid.”
The democratic process can sometime seem like sausage-making. Residents raise a range of issues, some of them appearing to be contradictory. At the June 1 workshop at Arlington High, some asked for more open space; others wanted greater housing density. How is that resolved?
“The master planning committee takes the leadership,” Kowalski said, adding, “It depends on the action steps,” which are yet to be proposed.
Further, Fields said: The two sides in the apparent contradiction “are not mutually exclusive.”
Could the process result in zoning law changes?
Kowalski said that they’re “not out of the question.”
The last full-scale revamp of the town’s zoning bylaw was 1977, with tweaks annually by Town Meeting since then. “Any bylaw mutates” via amendments, she said.
Does democratic sausage-making result in a real vision of the town’s future?
“The master planning committee has a vision,” Kowalski asserted. “The hardest part will be trying to word it”
Explaining that a bit, Kowalski talked about the “ah-ha moment,” when those involved in workshops and the planning process “got it.”
She concluded: “The draft needs a lot of work.”
Why is the meeting aimed at the Redevelopment Board and Town Meeting members?
Toward the end of the process, both groups will vote on the master plan, so planners would like to make sure meeting members are involved.
What key actions must occur in the months after Thursday’s meeting?
Kowalski called the fleshing out of working papers “the real meat” of this process. She emphasized the importance of the wording of those papers will be important. It will be reworked and polished before completion.
How will the plan be put into effect?
Once the papers are finished, planners indicated, the plan exercises no mastery if no action takes place.
Fields said: “This [process] will be a live through the implementation schedule …. implementing is crucial.”
Both Kowalski and Fields have master-planning experience in their previous positions.
Kowalski came to Arlington in 2009 from Reading, which had pursued the process just before she arrived. From 1999 to 2007, she was a planner in Concord.
Fields took part in a less than full-blown process in Waltham (2004 to 2007). When Fields was in graduate school, in 1994, he worked in Dedham which had a full master-plan process.
SOME LINKS TO CONSIDER
Master planning portal at town website
This story was published Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013, and updated Nov. 7.
The original headline and copy on this story said the plan would cover the next two decades. The Nov. 7 presentation was more specific: It said the plan would be in affect until at least 2025.
