Citing the need for a more formal plan for ensuring the continued growth and enhancing the infrastructure of the Bay State’s critical MetroWest region, state and local officials have proposed creating a new, comprehensive land use and development plan for the area.
Explaining the reasoning behind the plan at the annual breakfast of the 495/MetroWest Partnership, Massachusetts State Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki said that in an era of tightened state and federal budgets, a more formal plan for development was needed in order to ensure the region’s prosperity.
"If we had enough money to do all the things on the laundry list, we’d just do that. That’s not going to happen," said Bialecki. "If we put those needs in the context of a strategic plan, [we can make the case that] the public infrastructure investments needed in this region probably have the highest rate of return of any region of the state."
The MetroWest region has seen some of the commonwealth’s strongest growth in population over the past decades, and hosts some of the state’s largest and most important companies, including IBM (Littleton), Boston Scientific (Natick), Staples (Framingham) and EMC Corp. (Southborough).
But the region’s growth has long outpaced the development of its infrastructure – for years, more bridges in the region were graded structurally deficient than had been repaired, officials said. Ongoing projects, boosted by federal stimulus money, are helping to address some of the issues, but more long-term planning is needed.
The administration will work with the local advocacy group the 495/MetroWest Partnership, the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the MetroWest Growth Management Committee and town officials to create what it calls the "495/MetroWest Development Compact."
The goal is to come up with a development framework encompassing 36 towns and cities in the I-495/I-90 corridor. Priorities include determining the location and scope of needed infrastructure upgrades, dealing with water resource issues, increased wastewater treatment needs, planning transit upgrades and designating growth and preservation areas to plan for increased workforce housing.
Work on the Development Compact should begin later this year, officials said, with the full plan to be completed in 2011.
