The Case for a New Master Plan

Vacant Land

Relying heavily on past trends and present desires, a Municipal Master Plan is a community's "blueprint" for its future.  It provides regulatory guidance, suggested land use policies, explores budgets and budgeting decision processes.

 

A Master Plan that has been deliberately considered and supported by the community will become provide guidance for that community's decision making for the next decade – or more.  It can help to direct decision making on long-term physical investment, including roads, parks, schools, utilities and natural resources.

The current Edgartown Master Plan provided this guidance for about ten years after its development and adoption in 1990.  It addressed present and future concerns, and provided recommendations regarding land use, housing, economic development, natural and cultural resources, parks and open space, community services, community facilities, municipal utilities, and transportation.

However, even the best forecast for the future has limit.  Who could have considered, for example, the impact of the world-wide web? or cellular telephones? or 9/11?  Needless to say, the effective scope of the 1990 plan significantly diminished as time passed.  Despite best efforts to reconsider or revise it, the plan has been dormant since about 2000.

The current master planning effort intends to supplement – or replace – that 1990 plan.  It will be the culmination of extensive public input in the form of community forums, working groups, targeted outreach, and a number of community surveys.  This input will be carefully considered, led by a professional team of planners, and guided by research into the community's existing conditions and anticipated trends for the future. 

The revised Master Plan should represent be Edgartown's best effort to balance competing interests in the Town – and on the island – and proposes to address the complex and intertwined issues that Edgartown will face over the next decade and beyond.