Plenty of statistics illustrate Southeastern Massachusetts’ spectacular growth over the last three decades, but Mansfield Selectman Diane Royle can speak to it with firsthand knowledge. “Mistakes were made,” Royle said. “We have subdivisions that should not have been built where they were built. We thought we had the vision, but we didn’t.”
Mansfield, which has seen its population double since 1970, is a typical town in a region which has exploded in recent years, so much so that many fear it will soon be overrun with growth if residents fail to take action soon.
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Royle is among those concerned, which is why she is a member of Southeastern Mass: Vision 2020, a coalition of business people, politicians, and planners. The coalition has been working for the past year to form recommendations to guide the region’s future growth.
Recently, those recommendations were made public. In a ceremony held in Weir Village Riverfront Park by the Taunton River in Taunton, the task force presented recommendations for the region’s handling economic development, natural resources and open space, regional infrastructure, and land use.
All of these things have been strained by growth in recent years, according to task force members. Growth has clogged roadways, consumed open space, and strained the region’s water supply. Worse, it has created rivalries among nearby communities, which compete for commercial development to offset residential development – which consumes more in services than it contributes in property taxes.
The premise behind Vision 2020 is that competing communities must cooperate. If they don’t, Royle and other task force members argue, the problems that suburban sprawl creates will never be solved.
The region – the 51 cities and towns from Norwell to New Bedford – has grown from 637,937 residents in 1960 to 941,601 residents in 1990, for a growth rate of 46 percent. That’s triple the rate for the state as a whole, according to the Vision 2020 document released June 17.
“We need to think in a regional way,” said Donald L. Connors, a Boston lawyer and chairman of Vision 2020. “This is a region at risk.”
Specifically, the Vision 2020 document calls for the region to form action strategies for: open space and natural resources; economic development and urban reinvestment; land use and housing; and infrastructure.
The strategies will then form the basis of a policy plan, coordinated jointly by the area’s three regional planning agencies, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the Old Colony Planning Council, and the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District.
The document also calls for the communities to take “coordinated actions” to protect open space and concentrate development in cities and town centers, where buildings and roads and bridges already exist. The document points out that cities such as Fall River and New Bedford have large infrastructures which are underused because of their declining manufacturing base. Growth in these cities would be welcome, it states.
Cleaning up “Brownfields,” properties contaminated with industrial waste, is an example of how urban lands can be redeveloped, coalition members say.
For urban and downtown centers to be revitalized, neighboring cities and towns must be willing to communicate with each other to find the best ways to foster positive growth, said Fall River Mayor Edward M. Lambert, Jr. “We need to be very careful that we’re cognizant of each other’s needs,” he said.
Though the coalition supports protecting open space and centering growth in areas that are already developed, it is not anti-growth. One of its members is Jack Conway, of Jack Conway Associates, a real estate company. Business must be a part of the effort, he said.
“(Residents) want clean water, they want clean air, and they want a park for their kids,” Conway said. “Our business community cannot exist into the future unless we’re involved in the very basic roots of making this a better and more comfortable and soft and easy place to live.”
Part of that is protecting the region’s natural assets. For example, Mark Primack, executive director of the Wildlands Trust of Southeastern Massachusetts and a task force member, pointed out that the Taunton River is the last major river in New England that has not been dammed. Communities should consider these resources when deciding where they will permit growth, he indicated.
“The issue is not about how many houses are built, but about how well they’re built,” Primack said. “We’re not saying to the town of Plymouth, ‘Don’t build.’ We’re saying, ‘Don’t build next to the pond.'”
Not all of Vision 2020’s recommendations deal with land use and economic development. For example, the document also calls on communities to promote cultural and recreational amenities and education and training, both of which help attract business.
Some of the actions Vision 2020 advocates are taking place now – in Southeastern Massachusetts and other parts of the state. For example, Cape Cod last year passed a land bank initiative in which land owners will pay higher property taxes to fund the acquisition of open space.
Massachusetts state government has started to contribute to the effort. It has already committed money to pay for build-out analysis of communities that are part of Vision 2020, a service many towns have difficulty paying for on their own. State Sen. Marc R. Pacheco, D-Taunton, has also included $125,000 in state fiscal year 2000 budget to help administer Vision 2020 recommendations.
But task force members acknowledged that it will take more than that to achieve their objectives. Business and nonprofit groups must also contribute, they said.
They note that many Southeastern Massachusetts communities do not have master plans, full-time planners, or sufficient money to do the kind of planning that will be needed to protect the region.
“There’s a number of things we’d like to see happen that there’s no money for yet,” said Stephen C. Smith, executive director of Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District in Taunton. “The big question at this point is money.”
Smith added that the state will have to assist communities that are trying to redevelop their downtowns by streamlining permitting processes and by creating incentives for business to move there. Technical assistance is also needed in many communities, he said. “The level of sophistication in dealing with these issues varies enormously,” he said.
But Pacheco noted that officials in many communities are already talking about growth management. And their interest in the issue is getting the attention of state legislators.
“It’s the subject of the day,” he said. “I think we’re on the verge of great things (for) economic development and for preservation initiatives.”
