Many of you have been asking why the blog has been spotty to start the year [Ed. Note: Not a soul asked]. It’s been a combination of work, school vacation and boring meetings. For the most part, today will be more of the same – I have a work event, and have to spit this out faster than usual. Quality will suffer.

1. First Look at New Master Plan. Kind Of.

After a blistering start to the meeting (first motion was read at 6:33 p.m. – record time), the Council and the public was treated to the first look at Lowell Forward 2040 – our Comprehensive Master Plan. A master plan is a an officially adopted public document that establishes long-term policies and a vision for development within the city. Once adopted, Lowell Forward 2040 will replace our current Master Plan – Sustainable Lowell 2025 – adopted in 2013 and largely forgotten soon thereafter.

Yovani Baez-Rose, our Directed of the the Department of Planning and Development presented an overview and preview of the new plan. Of note, the current draft is the product of 18 months of work by the city, dozens of volunteers, Utile (a paid consulting firm), and city residents.

Ms. Baez-Rose highlighted a key feature of the new plan that will, hopefully, distinguish it from previous plans: follow-up. As noted above, previous Master Plans have been unveiled with great pomp and circumstance, only to be shelved and largely forgotten. Thankfully, the current planning team and manager’s office seems well-aware of this phenomenon and has committed to periodic review of the goals set forth by the plan:

Action items will be assigned to a department who will be tasked with implementing the goals within a specific time period. These departments will then periodically present their progress to the council by citing objective metrics of success:

If those screen-caps are hard to read, I agree – I had to capture them off of the LTC video feed. If I have a complaint (“if” lol), it’s that the plan was not available as part of the meeting agenda. If there is a public document on the agenda to be discussed, a copy of that document should always be included for public and council review. That said, this is exciting stuff and I look forward to reviewing the full document later today.

After everyone has an opportunity to review, there will be a public hearing, an opportunity to make amendments, a review by the Planning Board, and a vote for acceptance.

2. The Rest

Not much time for the clean-up:

Councilor Mercier made some vague comments about hoping that there would be nothing in the Plan about eliminating Single Family Zoning because we “need single family homes.” Those wouldn’t be eliminated, even with a zoning change, but whatever.

The council also shot-down a petition to re-zone 3.5 acres of single family zoning to two-family zoning. What do you want to bet that the new Master Plan will recommend that they stop doing shit like that?

Forward, People! Forward!