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What is a master plan?:

Master planning is long-term envisioning about a town’s growth and how it chooses to develop. Southwick’s Master Plan will be a planning document designed to guide the future actions of our town through the next approximately twenty years. Its goal is to help our community create a vision of what we want our town to look like in the future and how to achieve it.

 

Our master plan will look at the connections between Southwick’s population, economy, housing, transportation, infrastructure, community facilities, buildings, land use, environment, and recreation. It is meant to act as a blueprint for Southwick’s future.

 

 

Why should we have a master plan?:

Many communities surrounding Southwick have master plans or equivalents that get updated every 10 years or so.

 

Having a master plan helps communities determine what kind of look and feel they’d like their town to have, what sorts of businesses they’d like to attract or discourage, what kind of development and conservation they’d like to see in the future.

 

Southwick is overdue for a new master plan as the last one was developed in 1967. A 1997 master plan was created, but not implemented.  Without a master plan, Southwick will continue to be developed without a clear, unified direction and without agreement or input from its residents on how it should grow.

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How would a having and adopting a master plan benefit Southwick?:

A master plan will guide Southwick on how to make decisions regarding a wide range of areas, including:

• land development proposals

• land preservation initiatives

• zoning changes

• capital improvements

• our downtown area

• building our economic vibrancy

• making Southwick a more beautiful and viable community to live in

 

Having a master plan in place that the Planning Board references and uses to create new by-laws for the town would give Southwick a chance to grow in a way the reflects the needs and wants of the people and businesses in town.

 

Right now, the absence of a master plan means development is led by the needs and wants of developers without say from the public until a public hearing is held by the Planning Board. By that point, the direction and plans have been drawn up and it is harder to have a say in how or whether the project is wanted.

 

As referenced previously, we do not have a master plan currently. A new and adopted master plan would give residents the means to shape what kind of development and growth we want in Southwick over the next twenty years as well as a chance to define the kinds and sizes of businesses we want to encourage in our town.

 

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What kinds of future trends will this new master plan take into account? The world is changing a lot and quickly!:

A few members of MPAC, including our high school members, researched trends that will affect Southwick over the next 20 years. Their report can be found by clicking here or going to our Trends page.

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What is Southwick doing now for its new master plan?:

In late 2021, the Town of Southwick created a 'Master Plan Advisory Committee' known as MPAC. The goal of this committee is develop the master plan. MPAC has named the master plan project ‘Southwick 2040’ with the tagline ‘Creating our Future’.

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A critical step in producing and shaping the master plan is getting public input from the community. Southwick 2040 is meant to represent the honest opinions of the community to help build agreement on what our town wants to see over the next two decades. MPAC created a survey with the Pioneer Valley Planning  Commission (PVPC) that was available for all Southwick residents, homeowners, and members of the business community business owners to take over summer 2022. The survey closed on August 31, 2022 and the results can be seen by clicking here.

 

This current process that MPAC is engaging in is set to take place through 2023. The final product MPAC produces will be presented to the Southwick Planning Board, which will then review it and determine how to implement the plan.

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Now that the survey is done, how else can I contribute my opinion to this process?

Community visioning sessions are taking place in mid-October 2022. They are open to all Southwick residents, homeowners and members of the business community. Please click on Events to learn more. These sessions are open to all, whether they took the survey or not. We want to hear from everyone who is a part of Southwick.

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Can I attend the MPAC meetings?:

Absolutely, we welcome you to attend! MPAC meetings are open to the public. They are done in a hybrid format in-person at the Southwick Town Hall auditorium and via Zoom. Please click on our Events page to see when our next meeting is!