Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 12/6/2023
SOUTHWICK — For the past two years, a dedicated group of residents, with significant public input, spent hundreds of hours serving together on the Master Plan Advisory Committee drafting “Vision 2040,” which it describes as a “blueprint” for the future of the town. If adopted by the Planning Board, Vision 2040 would be the town’s first Master Plan in decades.
“The Master Plan is a living document meant to serve as a compass for Southwick’s future growth, development, and endurance over the next 20 years. It is a blueprint for the town to thrive as a preferred location to live, work, and play,” according to the executive summary of the 137-page plan.
The Planning Board will host the first of what are expected to be several public hearings on the plan at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12, in the Land Use Room on the upper level of Town Hall, 454 College Hwy., Southwick.
The committee wrote the report, with significant assistance from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, not from where the town is today, but “rather how we imagine the town will be in 2040,” according to the report.
To help guide the committee, residents and businesses were involved throughout the two-year process from responding to surveys, attending workshops, and participating in focus groups, according to the report. In 2022 and 2023, four community-visioning workshops and eight focus groups were conducted with residents and local business owners.
These sessions were used to identify long-term ideas for the town along with its “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats” relevant to the town achieving the vision for 2040.
The residents’ feedback during the workshops and focus groups defined the town’s strengths as a rural location in proximity to cities and a turnpike; small-town charm; Congamond Lake; farmland and agriculture; and a reasonable residential tax rate.
The town’s current weaknesses identified by the residents are culture, arts and entertainment; water restrictions and quality; lack of a defined town center; lack of affordable housing; poor infrastructure and internet connectivity; need for more services for an aging population; unplanned development; and that the town is considered a pass-through community, not a destination, according to the report.
The committee developed seven themes to drive the proposals included in each of the plan’s eight chapters. The eight chapters are land use; housing; economic development; historical and cultural resources; open space and natural resources; transportation; public services and facilities; and climate change and sustainability.
“Each [of the eight chapters] contain detailed action plans to achieve the strategies. The actions are designed to close the gap between the 2040 vision and existing conditions,” according to the report.
The committee sought “balance” in the report, which it described as understanding the town’s “needs and opportunities to balance what is strong and loved about the town with strategies to overcome external trends, threats, and the ability to be competitive in the region.”
It identified what is strong and loved about the town as “a New England look and feel; appealing to existing residents including an aging population; a right to farm community; avoiding large industrial complexes; and preserving open spaces and natural resources,” according to the report.
The plan isn’t a legally binding document but is a shared statement of vision that communities use to guide development, planning and zoning based directly on the expressed will of the residents.
It is considered ideal that a community make a new plan every 20 or so years, as a way to keep up with evolving needs and technology. Southwick attempted to make a Master Plan in the 1990s, but it ultimately failed to pass at the Town Meeting, though some elements of it were later adopted.