Welcome to the City of Newton, Massachusetts

A Plan for Newton’s Future

For the first time since 1980, the City’s Comprehensive Plan has been updated, and was recently docketed by Mayor David B. Cohen with the Board of Aldermen.

With its varied landscape and use, the 18 square miles that make up the City of Newton is a dynamic area. From Hemlock Gorge to Newton Center, from Chestnut Hill to Nonantum, Newton is a unique mosaic of commercial corridors, residential neighborhoods, and pristine natural jewels.

It is perhaps this diversity of purpose and identities that makes planning for the future of Newton so challenging. Nevertheless, after 4 ½ years of careful scrutiny, debate, and research, last month the Newton Comprehensive Planning Advisory Committee presented Mayor David Cohen with their final draft Newton Comprehensive Plan.

“This Plan is an impressive and important resource for me and all elected and appointed officials, as well as the residents and business people in our entire community,” said Mayor Cohen. “The quality of the Plan reflects the intellect and hard work of the members of this Committee. All current and future citizens of Newton owe the men and women of this committee a debt of gratitude. They have earned all of our respect.”

Mayor Cohen appointed 29 volunteers to serve on the Comprehensive Planning Advisory Committee (CPAC) in the Spring of 2002. Under the leadership of its Chair, Phil Herr, the CPAC was asked to draw upon the Land Use, Housing, and Open Space elements of the City’s “master plan” that had been adopted in 1980. Along with staff from the City’s Planning & Development and Information Technology Departments, the Newton Comprehensive Plan was submitted to Mayor Cohen this Spring. In October, Mayor Cohen sent the Plan to the Board of Aldermen their review and further action.

“Members of this committee volunteered countless hours in monthly meetings and subcommittee meetings to develop this draft plan,” said Planning and Development Director Mike Kruse. “Because the members came from such diverse backgrounds, it’s truly a plan from the grass roots.”

“Originally, the Mayor asked the members of the committee to help the city to prepare a comprehensive plan initially focused on land use and transportation, since those two things were so obviously interconnected,” said Committee Chair Phil Herr. “Then there were a series of independent decisions that led to an expansion of our scope.”

According to Herr, there was a good deal of activity occurring in the city in the area of affordable housing at the time they began their work, so it “simply made sense to see whether the Mayor agreed to incorporate housing into the Plan as well.”

And when the City’s Economic Development Commission was developing their strategic plan, the Mayor agreed to add that to what the CPAC was doing as well.

Later, the Mayor was approached by CPAC about incorporating some of the work of the city’s well-received recreation and open space plan and wondered if that element could be included. Finally, since there was a lot of activity around cultural activities and historic preservation, and since there were several CPAC members who were interested in those issues, those subjects were also included in the Plan.

When the dust settled, CPAC created a world-class 171-page document with 11 substantive chapters: (1) The Newton That We Want, which is a statement of goals, (2) Excellence in Place-Making, (3) Land Use, (4) Transportation and Mobility, (5) Housing, (6) Economic Development, (7) Open Space and Recreation, (8) Natural Resources, (9) Planning For and With History, (10) Facilities and Services, and (11) Implementation.

With such a broad range of important topics, the Plan includes not only what the Committee calls a “statement of intentions” for how the City should proceed, but also important research and compilation of data that has already been paying dividends.

“I think the Plan has already fulfilled one of its purposes, which was to begin to get current decisions to better reflect long-term considerations,” said Herr. “For example, the Committee documented that the City has a relatively narrow window of growth opportunity related to both housing and business, and a limited ability to change that.”

The Plan includes a “build out” analysis indicating 3,500 new housing units, an 11% increase over 2002 levels could be “reasonably expected.” Commercially in 2002, the City had roughly 10.8 million square feet of commercial and industrial floor area, which could max out at 18.6 million square feet given current rules and regulations, but realistically the expectable growth amount is similar to that for housing.

“The articulation of that range in the Plan has already proven to be quite useful,” said Herr. “The Newton Center Task Force and a variety of other departments and committees have used both our numerical analyses and our graphic analysis of some spatial relations around transportation, schools, and residential and commercial structures across the city. These graphics are being included in the City’s review of development proposals.”

“We anticipate the Board of Aldermen and the Zoning Board of Appeals will use this plan as a guide as they consider future requests for special permits or comprehensive permits in Newton,” agreed Mike Kruse. “Information in the Plan provides a useful tool for planning future development in Newton.”

The Plan in a number of ways is consistent the efforts of the Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development (OCD) around “Smart Growth,” which describes areas within a region where development makes the most sense. OCD documents describe Smart Growth this way: “It is about growing where there is existing infrastructure and utilities, with greater pedestrian access to schools, civic facilities, retail and employment centers, and other destinations.”

According to the Plan, “‘Growing Smart’ in Newton must give important consideration to neighborhood as well as Citywide impacts.” Since there is a delicate balance between developing a range of housing options while preserving the character and infrastructure capacity of a neighborhood, the Plan calls for “A management system able to resolve conflicts while making decisions in ways that are predictable, fair, and cost-effective.”

The Plan also thoughtfully addresses Transportation and Mobility in Newton, noting, “In the years since the [Mass] Turnpike extension [was constructed]…no major transportation improvements have been made in Newton. Relative to many other parts of the region, [transportation] service for Newton has deteriorated.”

The Plan also points out that between 1990 and 2000, “auto registrations in Newton grew by about 14%, while population grew only 1.5%. By 2000, three-quarters of our households already had two or more cars available to them, and only 7% had none.”

“Without question the biggest concern with development has to do with traffic,” said Herr. “One of the first things adopted as a result of the Plan is a system of classifications for every City street.”

The Plan explains, “Newton’s 1,500 streets totaling 310 miles serve a variety of functions in a variety of contexts, and those functions and contexts provide the basis for their classification.”

The Plan breaks down the City’s streets into six “Functional Classifications:” Freeways (Mass Pike and Route 128), Major Arterial (Route 9), Minor Arterial (Needham and Washington Streets), Major Collectors (streets that have volumes of 5-10,000 vehicles daily), Minor Collectors (1-5,000 vehicles daily), Local Streets (all public streets with lesser volume than Minor Collectors), and Private Streets (non-public ways).

The Functional Classifications have been approved by the Board of Aldermen, and according to the Plan are intended to “Help guide decisions about design and priorities for street reconstruction, alteration, and maintenance, for traffic and parking regulations, use of traffic calming techniques, bicycle accommodation, public transportation routes, and provisions for pedestrians.”

The Plan also develops seven “design type classifications” for roadways, which is currently pending before the Public Safety and Transportation Committee of the Board of Aldermen.

“The classifications of roadways is an excellent example of how this Plan takes a daunting challenge, breaks it down, and provides a logical framework for the City to make important decisions,” said Kruse.

According to Herr, in addition to enabling city planners to view their short-term decisions through the lens of long-range goals and objectives, the adoption of the Plan would enhance the predictability of City regulations for developers and neighbors. “There are some very serious measures that can enable us to do things better,” said Herr. “Being clearer to developers and neighbors in advance as to what the City really wants is one. Greater predictability for developers and those affected by it is another. It is human nature that whenever change is proposed in your neighborhood, to be highly sensitive about it. I think we need a system in place to give those people an appropriate voice, along with City-wide considerations, and I think we’ve made great strides there.”

The Plan itself goes even further by calling for the City to “Improve the development review and approval process to include clear rules, helpful interpretation, excellence in process, sensitivity to place, openness to creativity, structured opportunities for exchange, a clear regulatory map, early predictability, reasonable timeframes, and a single point of focus.”

In addition, the Plan recommends a “comprehensive rewriting of the Zoning Ordinance by a professional planning firm…[to] ‘clean up’ the existing Ordinance and reinforce the concepts in the Plan.”

Another important lesson of the Plan is in the process. “The cooperation between this advisory committee, and people in the executive and legislative branches of our city government may indicate the next steps of approval and implementation will go smoothly,” said Herr.

Mayor Cohen concurred: “I am almost as impressed with the CPAC’s methodology as I am with their final product,” he said. “In developing this comprehensive plan, they have done some comprehensive research and outreach within our community. It has been a process that has brought people together for a common purpose, which is the best way we can work through these important issues.”

At his weekly press conference on October 16th announcing his docketing the Plan with the Board of Aldermen, Mayor Cohen said the Plan “Performs the critical function of framing the issues and the debate in a way that enables us to make important decisions for our future. This plan is by no means a straightjacket; rather it is a working, evolving document.”

Herr concurs, “A comprehensive plan is an imperfect Constitution. We are not settling all the questions for the next decade. The Plan addresses long-term concerns, but it is not firm and unchangeable. On the contrary, this document should be informed by learning from implementation. I expect that the Plan would be changed and should be thought of as a dynamic tool that continues to be shaped by things people do with it long after the CPAC is no longer in sight.”

The Newton Comprehensive Plan was docketed by Mayor Cohen and has been referred to the Zoning and Planning Committee of the Board of Aldermen. According to Kruse, the Plan has been referred to the Planning and Development Board, who will deliberate on any changes to be made and then by the end of February will send it back to the Zoning and Planning Committee.

You may read a copy of the Plan by clicking here.