Council Accepts Healthy Places by Design Action Plan

Months of community meetings, surveys and discussion have culminated in the action plan, which town planners hope will be a “major focus piece” for rewriting North Kingstown’s comprehensive plan.

At its Monday night meeting, the North Kingstown Town Council accepted the plan that outlines what North Kingstown is currently doing to become a healthier community and what still needs to be done.

North Kingstown , along with Pawtucket and South Kingstown. The project is part of a nationwide grant program to help communities implement policy changes that foster health and wellness. The Town of North Kingstown partnered with to jumpstart the campaign in town. From last fall to now, the project has hosted community design events (gathering feedback from residents and stakeholders) on topics ranging from walkability/biking in town to local food and more. With that information, the project broke into four working groups (walking/biking, public spaces, neighborhoods, and access to healthy food).

“This is one of the most extensive community outreach processes for a planning project in North Kingstown in years,” said Doug McLean, principal planner at the North Kingstown Planning Department. According to Planning Director Jon Reiner, planning projects in the past at most drew a crowd of 50 whereas the Healthy Places initiative drew about 800 participants.

As funding for the initiative sets to run out in a month, project leaders assured the council that Healthy Places by Design in North Kingstown wouldn’t disappear with it. Using social media and other platforms, organizers and working group leaders are keeping residents in the loop. One working group is even pushing to create North Kingstown’s first community garden.

“They aren’t just meeting to talk about what the town should do,” said Denise Kaplin, Healthy Places by Design YMCA consultant. “They’re talking about what they can do.”

The initiative has also aligned other trends and issues going on in North Kingstown, including discussions of identifying village centers and the . Additionally, the healthy foods working group is collaborating with the town to craft a livestock ordinance that would make it easier for residents to raise livestock (such as chickens) and allow families to produce their own local food.

One of the biggest topics during the process has been walking and in town and determining ways to connect Quonset, Wickford and Wickford Junction, where a . During a survey of , students expressed the difficulty of biking and walking to school.

The action plan will also play a crucial role in the crafting of the town’s new comprehensive plan – a two-year process that will be starting up soon, according to town officials.

Interested in joining a working group? Visit Healthy Places by Design’s page here.