SWAMPSCOTT — The Master Plan Committee held a virtual meeting Monday evening to discuss updates toward the town’s future goals for 2035.
The committee is comprised of 26 town members from different departments, including the Climate Action Planning Committee, the Board of Health, and the Renewable Energy Committee. The ultimate ambition of the committee is to work toward creating new policies to make the town a greener, healthier environment for its residents.
Back in April 2024, the Select Board appointed the committee to work with Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), as well as town staff, to work on improving the community throughout the next decade.
In November 2024, the committee held a public forum to gauge communal interest and gather different perspectives on the committee’s ambitions for the next decade. Following the forum, an eight-week survey was released on the town’s website, which was open to residents from Nov. 16 2024 to Jan. 13 2025. The committee encouraged residents and community members to share their ideas and visions for the project.
“Thanks to everyone for their work,” Planning Board Chair Ted Dooley said. “The work that’s being done on the Master Plan is incredibly important, and it will give a great roadmap for the town to adopt.”
“The Master Plan is an aspirational guide, and the hope is that the updated plan will help Swampscott with ideas and decision-making from now, all the way through to 2035,” said MAPC Project Manager Carlos J. Montañez.
Montañez elaborated on the committee’s previous efforts to gain communal insight. “In terms of forum engagement, the survey saw wide amounts of perspectives, I think we got a lot of feedback,” He said. “For potential challenges, people cited maintaining town character while focusing on growth.” He added that participants also highlighted the need for flooding mitigation.
More elements that were discussed were balancing preservation with modernization with growth, as well as a strong community desire to increase open spaces and accessibility town-wide. “Improving connectivity and accessibility, traffic congestion and pedestrian safety remained big concerns, as areas for improvement of the town,” Montañez said.
According to Montañez, the online survey saw responses from 385 residents, and 1800 open-ended comments. He noted that the MAPC will be taking insights from the survey to preview emerging goals for the town’s future. Some of the priorities he said were including pedestrian safety and addressing the issue of beach contamination.
Other topics discussed were “Climate messaging through art,” which would see the use of arts and culture to raise awareness about climate change, Montañez said. “Another key theme was the idea of historic tourism economy, which would support businesses and enhance community connections.”
Planning Board member Angela Illoplota asked, “Will there be any prompt? Are we asking people to comment on anything?”
“Absolutely, we’ll have photo suggestions, informational boards, but I really like that idea. We would definitely find some way for them to submit feedback.”
“I’m concerned about presenting only some of the goals instead of all the goals,” Elana Zabar noted. “A lot of people have their eyes on the buzzword transparency, so I want to make sure we’re not just showing a couple of things.” She cited the mission to clean the sewer system was not presented.
Montañez noted that the MAPC team has met and worked to present all the information in a digestible way that is not overwhelming to residents and includes every important element of discussion and consideration.
Montañez also commented on the next steps after Monday night’s meeting. “There will be another public forum on March 20, and after that we’ll have a better sense of feedback and emerging goals, then staff can start drafting goals,” Montañez said.
