Your Community - Community Master Planning

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Comprehensive Plans

Most towns have these. The plan provides the basic vision, and some more specific directions, for your community's future. It will likely have sections on parks, land use, sewers, neighborhoods, transportation, and more.

Statements in these plans can serve as a hint of what kinds of things are coming in the future for your community, AND as ammunition for your project.

For example, if there's a sewer extension planned to serve a new subdivision, work to get a trail easement as part of the deal. It will help if you find statements in some plan (e.g. the parks plan or transportation plan) saying that trails are important.

If a plan goal is to reduce traffic in neighborhoods, part of the answer may be to encourage bicycling and walking and slow traffic with traffic calming measures. Similarly, the parks plan element should include a commitment to trails.

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