Presenting the Acton 2020 plan on Tuesday, March 6

On Tuesday March 6 starting at 7:00 PM at Town Hall I get the honor of helping to present the Acton 2020 Comprehensive Community Plan. I wanted to explain why you might want to stop by and participate.

Residents have strong feelings about what works in Acton, and what's difficult. As individuals we can't do much about where the town is headed over the next 10 and 20 years, but together we can agree on overall goals, and come up with strategies that help us do what we can to bend the course of things. That's what the Acton 2020 Comprehensive Community Plan is. It's based on the participation of more than a 1000 Acton residents over the last 4 years, and the hard work of the consultant team, town staff, the Acton 2020 committee, and all of you that have come to public meetings and sent in comments.   

Massachusetts towns are required to have an active and up to date plan that describes the current status and future goals for the town's land use and physical development, and details strategies for achieving them. Acton's last plan update was in 1998, and the last complete plan was in 1990. A lot has changed since then. 

For one thing, the way people think of 'growth' has changed. It used to be seen as an almost unalloyed good - growth meant new residents and new businesses, which brought new tax revenue, more connections, more excitement, more confirmation that Acton is a place to be. Now, growth in Acton is more often seen as more traffic, more crowding in the schools, more risks to the water supply, more pressure to cut down trees and develop houses. We also understand now the mixed nature of the tax and financial implications of growth: Incremental costs of educating more students costs more than revenues from new families; and infrastructure needed to accomodate growth creates costs right away and maintenance and financing costs for the future. 

The good news is that current trends and new tools can help us find a way forward, a new roadmap for any future growth. Some new growth in Acton looks all but inevitable, given supply and demand, and the somewhat limited toolbox of techniques that towns can use; but growth is slowing down a lot for clear reasons that will continue for a while. Acton can do more to concentrate any future growth as much as possible in to the few areas that can actually benefit from some thoughtful expansion of mixed retail and residential uses, starting with the area around Kelley's Corner at 27 and 111. Kelley's corner, with the help of current business and land owners, and the support of new reguatory and design strategies, can start to become the sort of walkable vibrant center of town that many residents want to see more of. 

Another thing that's changed in the last 20 years is that the town's understanding of financial limitations has sharpened. We've been through a couple of recessions. The continuing growth of the schools, and new mandates from the state and federal governments, has sharpened the competition for scarce resources. More long-range planning is showing the risks and challenges ahead. One aspect of the slowing of growth is that the aging of our town employee population has brought in to focus the big liabilities ahead in meeting obligations for retiree pensions and other benefits. The town has some daunting financial challenges ahead. The Acton 2020 plan is not just a spending wishlist - the plan suggests ways to increase fiscal capacity over the coming decades, and emphasizes that major new expenses only make sense when the fiscal capcity is there to support them. The plan does not detail what major projects should be undertaken when, but it does sort out the major proposed capital expenses into near, medium and long term, and encourages the town to seek ways to make these investments affordable, through such means as private/public partnerships, grants, and the increasing use of emerging information technology to reduce the cost of getting things done.   

There's clearly a lot more to the plan then what I can fit in to these few paragraphs. And I've just picked out a few themes that I find compelling that I hoped would engage you.  The complete draft plan is ready for your review at any time at acton2020.info. You might start with these two PDF files: a two-page overview, or a 13-page executive summary. There are a number of ways described on the website for you to send in your comments and questions. At Tuesday's meeting, we'll go over the plan in the first part of the meeting, and them leave plenty of time for questions and comments.

The committee hopes to finish off the plan in March, after reviewing any comments that come in between now and March 12, so that we are fully ready for a town meeting discussion and vote on the overall goals and objectives in April.

The meeting on Tuesday is your last chance to make public comments that can impact the published plan, so I hope to see you there.