Planning Board hears from Master Plan Committee
by Kevin Kohrt
November 29, 2005 — The Planning Board
took a look at the Master Plan, which is shaping up after many
months of work. The Board had a lot of input to give Master Plan
Chairman Muriel Kramer, who presented the draft of their efforts.
"Shoot for simplicity," suggested Evan Ballantyne, challenging the
Master Plan Committee to crank it down to 10 pages and put the rest
in the appendices.
"It has to be user friendly," stated Sandy Altamura (File photo),
suggesting many of the charts and graphs be moved to the appendices
as well.
"It needs to be a workable, usable document" suggested Claire
Wright, who felt there was too much stress on holding public forums
on major issues, which she felt could bog down decision making.
Chairman Mark Abate wanted to see more language that looked at "the
town as a business, verses the town as a State Park."
"You might have to
have a major issues section," offered Jaime Goncalves, looking to
highlight the important but conflicting elements of downtown
revitalization, economic growth, rural character, and the rest.
Muriel agreed. "A lot of people don't understand that their services
are directly tied to their taxes, she said. "You can't get a big hit
on tax reduction without major commercial development. So the
question is: Where will it go? What do you want to see there? And it
will look different. Hopkinton will be different."
R.J. Dourney concurred, stating "Hopkinton will be different whether
you like it or not," and suggesting the Master Plan present some
concrete plans and goals for what kind of commercial development
Hopkinton should seek, and where do they want to see it located.
Concrete was a key theme, though. "Really specific feedback would be
very helpful," concluded Muriel, promising that her committee would
incorporate what they could from the general comments that night,
and coming back for a joint run-through with the Planning Board and
the Master Plan committee in December.
The Master Plan committee hopes to have a draft ready for
distribution to all town boards and committees by the middle of
December.
