MARC DRAISEN
Funds are dwindling
Regional planners want legislators to set aside up to $3.5 million so they can assist communities with zoning, land-use and permitting issues.
The funding would be used to help cities and towns that lack professional planning departments and rely almost solely on volunteers to make permitting and planning decisions.
“There are a handful of municipalities Â… that have reasonably robust planning departments,” said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, or MAPC.
“There are 50, 75 or 100 that have no planning staff at all. Everything is done by volunteers,” he said. “The vast majority of communities are somewhere in the middle.”
The request comes after the state created a $1.85 million District Local Technical Assistance (DLTA) Fund as part of the expedited permitting law that was passed in 2006. The money was distributed among 13 regional planning agencies, including MAPC.
MAPC, which represents 101 communities in Greater Boston, has committed all of its technical assistance money and most of the other planning agencies have as well, Draisen said at a legislative breakfast last Monday.
Planning agencies have assisted towns using the DLTA Fund, and two bond-funded programs – the state Department of Housing and Community Development’s Priority Development Fund and the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’ Smart Growth-Smart Energy Technical Assistance Grant Program.
But Draisen noted that those funds will no longer be available.
“All these doors Â… happen to be coming to an end at essentially the same time,” said Draisen, who urged the House and Senate to refund the DLTA program.
“What local communities need more than anything is this technical assistance,” Rep. Michael J. Rodrigues, D-Westport, told Banker & Tradesman.
Even though Rodrigues said the Legislature is facing “a very difficult budget season,” he said technical assistance has been a priority of his and the Legislature’s.
“We want to be able to do that, but I can’t say it’s likely or unlikely,” he said of appropriating the funds.
‘Good Government’
MAPC has used the DLTA grants for a variety of purposes, including to create a master plan for development and conservation along the Lower Mystic River. That process involved six cities: Boston, Chelsea, Everett, Medford, Malden and Somerville.
About 10 percent to 15 percent of the technical assistance money was used to create a guidebook on streamlined local permitting for local officials. The booklet, produced by the Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies, features 26 best practices so that permit applications can be handled more efficiently and effectively.
Gregory Bialecki, undersecretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, praised the guidebook at last week’s breakfast.
Bialecki said it includes practices for effective planning. “It’s just good government,” he said.
The administration is considering requiring communities that apply for planning grants through the expedited permitting process to submit an assessment of how many of the guidebook’s practices they employ, Bialecki said. Towns are required to submit a report 120 days after receiving a grant explaining how they used the money.
