Communities in the MetroWest area may need to consider zoning changes in the next few years to accommodate the growing numbers of seniors, a regional planning official told a group assembled at a 495 MetroWest Partnership event.
After experiencing a boom in the late 1990s, the MetroWest region’s growth slowed somewhat over the past decade. With the proportion of school age children on the decline and the proportion of seniors on the increase, communities may need to consider zoning changes to alter their housing mix and provide opportunities for seniors to age in place and for young people to buy starter homes or condos, said Holly St. Clair, data services director for Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).
Several other ideas were exchanged last night when a mixed group of citizens, town planners, developers and regional planning agency staffers and politicians assembled at Westborough High School to help prioritize development plans for the state’s MetroWest region.
The event, sponsored by the 495 MetroWest Partnership, a think tank for the region, was the first of two public forums to give people a chance to review proposals put forth by the region’s 37 cities and towns as part of the 495/MetroWest Development Compact.
The partnership will use the public input to help flesh out the final plans, due to be completed by the end of the year, said Paul Matthews, executive director of the partnership.
The idea is modeled after a similar planning process which took place on the South Shore, and is intended to help towns and cities in the region come up with a list of priorities for infrastructure, development and preservation, in order to smooth the process of obtaining state and federal aid and better coordinate the region’s growth.
Planners from the region’s two planning agencies, the MAPC and the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission (CMRPC) have already met with representatives from each of the cities and towns, resulting in a list of 646 sites, 383 of which the towns wish to preserve for historical or environmental reasons and 226 of which the towns have designated for development.
If fully built out, the potential development areas could accommodate an additional 250,000 jobs, about five times as many as the area is expected to actually generate, said Vera Kolias, principal planner for CMRPC. That means that events like last night’s are needed to help distinguish which sites should receive top priority.
"Now that we’ve got a sense of municipal priorities, the question is what rises to the top?" in terms of regional needs, said Matthews.
Transportation infrastructure is another issue that needs to be addressed, planners said. Suburbanites in the area travel an average of 18 miles round trip to work, resulting in long commutes.
Marc Draisen, executive director of MAPC, said he was struck by the level of knowledge and enthusiasm attendees brought to the task.
"I’m impressed by how much people already know about what the sites are," Draisen said. He’d like to see more such events in the Metro-Boston area.
