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Date: 6/9/2022
NORTHAMPTON – After a 33-year career in Northampton, Director of Planning & Sustainability Wayne Feiden has officially announced that he is retiring, effective June 30.
Out of the 33 years Feiden was a part of the Northampton municipal government, he spent 25 as director of the Planning & Sustainability Department. “I cannot overstate the impact Director Feiden has had on Northampton,” said Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra in a statement. “His expertise and guidance across five mayors and a third of a century place Wayne among the most influential government officials in Northampton history.”
Feiden, who has an undergraduate degree in natural resources, worked in Vermont for a natural resource agency in environmental issues for seven years. He was originally helping towns with water supply and sewage disposal issues. Through these experiences, he began to find passion in planning from a broader world view and went to graduate school in planning.
When he and his wife initially moved to Northampton, Feiden said they only planned on staying for a year, but his love for the city grew exponentially. “We just fell in love here [in Northampton], and never wanted to leave,” Feiden told Reminder Publishing.
Feiden began his career in the Northampton Planning Department in 1988 as an environmental planner, and then became a senior planner in 1991, before advancing to the principal planner position in 1993. He was officially named director of the department in 1997.
According to Feiden, the renaissance of Northampton started only a couple of years before he became involved with the city. When he first arrived, the city’s zoning was really focused on “suburban development,” but when he came on, the focus shifted to sustainability, walkability and bikability. For example, there were rules in the zoning that said residents needed a backyard if there was housing downtown, which is something that was not desirable or doable for the makeup of downtown.
“One of the early things I did was ask City Council to change the zoning to say, ‘We want to encourage housing,’” said Feiden. “Being a part of this change was exciting.”
Before Feiden arrived at Northampton, King Street was redone in 1985, but there was not a single pedestrian signal along the street except for the intersection at Main Street. To change this, Planning & Sustainability put together a fundraising campaign to add one by the Stop & Shop entrance, which Feiden described as “probably the most unsexy thing you could imagine.”
“People contribute to making their kids’ journey to school safe, [but] they don’t usually contribute to something as far a way [as the Stop & Shop signal],” said Feiden. “But they did, and the dollars poured in. We funded it, and we brought it to the council.”
Feiden described this King Street signal as a “wake up call” for the city because they started to realize that the “car-oriented” days in the 1980s should dissipate. “I spent 25 percent of my career making up for a 40-year time period where we ignored pedestrians and bicycles,” he said. “And we’re still not nearly as far along as we should be, but 40 years of neglect is a long time.”
Under Feiden’s direction, Northampton has increased from 2.9 miles of bike paths to 12.5 miles of bike paths. From a conservation standpoint, as well, the city has increased their open space “sevenfold.” Permanently protected open space now represents over a quarter of the city.
“Our metrics now for open space isn’t about how much we buy, but do we offset open space by creating new building lots,” said Feiden. “Do we carve out some building lots for more affordability so that, while we’re protecting land, which is what people want, we’re not artificially inflating the value of land. The market’s inflating the value of land, but we want to make sure we’re not part of it.”
Since beginning his journey in Northampton, Feiden said he has been happy to have been a part of so many “paradigm shifts” regarding downtown, bike and pedestrian traffic, and climate change. He credits the entire Planning & Sustainability Department for being an integral piece of these important issues.
Overall, Feiden’s achievements include, but are not limited to, stewarding redevelopment at the former Northampton State Hospital with legislation, planning and regulatory programs; initiating the Picture Main Street and Pleasant Street Complete Streets programs to make the system more walkable and bikeable and encourage experiential businesses that draw people downtown; and initiating a program of developer paid sidewalks and traffic mitigation to supplement city-wide complete streets efforts.
When working with residents over the years and developing comprehensive plans for the city, the goal has always been to come to as close as a consensus as one can with the community’s goals and ambitions, despite the fact that Northampton has seen a decrease in population within walking distance of downtown.
“A lot of new housing units are being developed … we have fewer people per housing,” said Feiden. “We’re not actually trying to get more people, we’re trying to stop the hemorrhaging of people … [this is] consistent with the comprehensive plan. If the city wants to revise the plan, that’s fine, that’s up to the community.”
Outside of Northampton, Feiden has led and served on other strategic planning projects throughout other parts of the United States and world. These experiences, according to Feiden, have informed his own vision and decision-making in Northampton.
“I love Northampton, but it’s dangerous to work in one area but not understand what the other trends in the field are,” said Feiden, adding that he has been to places like Dublin, Ireland, for their own projects. “I’m always interested in projects that have overlap with what I do here.”
When talking about the future of Northampton, Feiden said the times are changing, and the city will have to continue to adapt. “There was a time where you had to come downtown,” said Feiden. “It’s where employment was, it’s where you bought a hammer, it’s where you bought a T-shirt. You can [now] live and never come downtown, and that trend is going to continue.”
To accommodate these changes, Feiden said Northampton needs to continue to be “experiential” in their planning, otherwise downtown could be dead years down the road. Despite these cautions, Feiden thinks the city is making “the right decisions” to not let this happen. He said the city has surplussed property, obtained millions for affordable housing, and changed the zoning, but the housing crisis will continue thanks to the market.
“We’re attracting professionals with money, which is great for the economy, but it makes the housing crisis worse,” said Feiden. “For the next 20 years, the housing crisis will continue, no matter what we do.”
Feiden’s last official day is June 29, and he told Reminder Publishing he is looking forward to traveling and consulting more. Additionally, Feiden is also a teacher at UMass Amherst, so he hopes to continue that journey, along with developing a more flexible schedule.
Meanwhile, Carolyn Misch will be the interim director of planning and sustainability. Misch has worked with Feiden for 22 years and was named assistant director in early 2020.
“I’ve really loved working here … it’s been a really supportive community,” Feiden said. “On a personal level, I’m excited to do some things I usually don’t have time for.”