Over 1,100 Dedham Residents Have Responded. Have You?

Press release from the Town of Dedham:

June 10, 2020

Even without in-person meetings, to date more than one thousand Dedham residents have participated in Designing Dedham 2030, an ongoing effort to plan the town's future around community goals.

The town is working with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) to pilot a model of virtual community participation while in-person events are not an option. These extraordinary times are emphasizing the importance of defining a shared vision for the future, and Dedham is prioritizing the importance of engaging residents and stakeholders and responding to their feedback. The Designing Dedham team is confident there will be opportunities for in person community input at future stages, particularly since the master planning process is anticipated to continue through 2021.

The first initiative of the Designing Dedham 2030 Master Plan consisted of an initial "community visioning" survey, which received over 1,100 responses from Dedham residents and other stakeholders. The responses narrowed from over a dozen possible goals to three top priorities: fiscal responsibilities, sustainability, and inclusivity. The responses also identified Dedham's proximity to Boston, convenient access to highways/rail and attractive neighborhoods as the town’s top three assets. Lastly, the top three challenges identified were traffic congestion, rising cost of living and local tax rates/municipal finances.

On April 4, the Designing Dedham 2030 team hosted a virtual visioning workshop with over 100 attendees on WebEx and 300 viewers on Facebook Live. Following this workshop, the Designing Dedham team released a new Topic Areas Survey, which will gather detailed feedback about specific topics, including transportation, natural and historic resources, housing, and public health.

How can you get involved?

• Complete this survey by June 30.
• Visit www.DesigningDedham2030.org and (1) subscribe to get updates, (2) find ways to connect to the project, and (3) offer input.

More information summarizing the feedback from the virtual visioning workshop and visioning survey results is being compiled and will be shared through the project website soon. For more information, please contact Dedham Planning Director Jeremy Rosenberger, (781) 751-9241, or MAPC Project Manager Josh Fiala, 617-933-0760.

This press release was produced by the Town of Dedham. The views expressed here are the author’s own.