Town to conduct community survey on land use plans

Dec. 17, 2015 | Chris Goudreau
cgoudreau@thereminder.com

LONGMEADOW – The town is working with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC) to produce a community survey in order to gain input on long-range land-use plans for Longmeadow during the next five years.

Town Manager Stephen Crane told Reminder Publications the survey is in a draft phase and should be finalized and sent to residents sometime shorty after the first of the new year.

He added the survey would “help assess community attitudes” regarding land use, zoning, municipal services, increasing the town’s financial base through taxes or other revenues, the types of development that the community could embrace and town owned properties that could be developed.

“I look at the questions as really an assessment of the community’s appetite for change,” he said.

The survey also includes an introduction pertaining to reasons the town is looking to update its long-range plan such as the constraints of Proposition 2 1/2, he noted.

The town is anticipated to reach its residential tax rate limit of $25 per $1,000 of assessed value during the next five to six years.

At its Dec. 2 meeting, the Select Board emphasized its goal of increasing the town’s revenue in 2016.

Crane said he believes the town has “no choice,” but to pursue ideas to increase its revenue.

“If there’s one thing that has broad consensus on the Longmeadow Select Board is that we’ve got to do something,” he explained. “And to do something different means the town has to consider changing – either changing how we do business or changing how we generate revenue or taxes – but it’s something that we’re taking a serious look at because we know we need to be very thoughtful in making recommendations. People love the way the community is.”

He continued, “For good reason, people like the community the way it is. That’s why we have to be respectful of Longmeadow’s identity and not really trying to propose changing the quality of life and what makes Longmeadow such a special community.”

However, resident responses from the survey could indicate a lack of approval of change for the town, he noted.

 “We [would] focus on driving down costs of services and potentially eliminating services as opposed to expanding our tax base,” he added.  

Crane said although the aim of the survey is to measure needs for the town in the next five years, “there’s not a lot of change we can do,” because the town is built-out.

“We’re really only looking at the future of a relatively small amount of land that could be developed,” he explained. “One of the parcels that gets talked about frequently is called the water tower property and that is off of Academy Drive, [which is] an example of a municipally owned parcel that is currently used for recreation and is under the jurisdiction of the Conservation Commission.”

He added the Council on Aging has also identified Turner Park as a potential site for a proposed new Adult Center and the location could be available for additional development.

“The density of development would be important because the more densely you develop a parcel – the more value you get out of it and then [it makes the] assessed value higher and then therefore the taxes that are paid are higher” Crane said. “To get to that higher level of density we would probably look at our zoning regulations, [which] would be the next step.”

He added the survey would help as a guide to draft recommendations for changes in the town.

“Expanding the tax base is an important goal, but it’s not our only goal,” he noted. “We want to be creative and aggressive in our pursuit of other revenue opportunities because we know we can’t simply tax our way out of long-range issues.”

A public forum on the town’s long-range plan is also planned for sometime early next year, Crane said.

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