Regional Development Suitability Model

Animated Results & Conclusions

The Past

      Animated Growth History, 1971-1992

The Future?
     Animated Growth Scenarios, 1992-2020

• Trends Extended (Suburban Sprawl)
  2 Acre Housing Lots & Minimal Land Re-Use
  59,896 Acres Needed for Development by 2020
  
  
• Compact Growth Scenario
  2/3 Acre Housing Lots & Maximum Land Re-Use
  18,384 Acres Needed for Development by 2020

Subregional Focus Area

• Southeast Central Massachusetts

Conclusions (1995)

Thinking about, generating, and presenting all these model results produced the desired effect both for the Commission and the public: the model illustrated how policy and investment decisions can affect land use. For example, the model shows that development pressures will continue to focus down on the eastern part of CMRPC's region, in particular the towns of Westborough, Shrewsbury, Northborough, Grafton, Holden, Millbury and Auburn. Much less development appears likely for the Blackstone Valley which has expressed a strong interest in attracting additional investment. As for the public and the individual municipalities, with over 100 people exposed to the model in one form or another, interest continues to be strong in creating either municipal GIS's or using GIS technology to solve local problems. CMRPC receives requests or fields questions on a weekly basis about how GIS can be used in community applications. Now that a fully functioning model has been developed, staff intend to incorporate it into on-going agency activities.

There are three areas where additional work will occur:

First, the short range plan for the use of the model is to assist in formulating a regional land use policy as part of CMRPC's Development Framework. The intent of the model is to develop a tool to evaluate regional development issues; thus, it is ideal for this task. The Development Framework will provide CMRPC's member communities with an understanding of future growth prospects for the region. Regional policies will be proposed that can lead to desired outcomes of encouraging economic development, protecting valuable natural resources, and making efficient investments in infrastructure, in essence, promoting an efficient land use pattern for the region.

The model is a powerful tool that allows analysts to run different scenarios of alternative growth policies to visually portray predicted outcomes. These "what if" games have heretofore been unable to be conceived on a broad regional scale. No new data will need to be created for this activity, but reclassifying existing data can be accomplished by land use planners in order to simulate the specific growth/protection concept. Staff will work with the Physical Development Committee on the scenarios to run, and the results of these scenarios will be analyzed with the Committee to depict the advantages and disadvantages of each. Once recommendations have been prepared by the Committee, the model will provide an excellent tool for discussion at public meetings to develop a consensus among the Commission's delegates, which will lead (hopefully) to adoption of a regional growth policy.

Secondly, future use of the model will occur in a local context. The model is regional in scale, but can provide useful information to local decision makers. Two uses for local planning are anticipated. The first is educational. The model as currently developed can be "taken on the road" and shown to municipal boards and the general public. The results of conventional and alternative scenarios can be shown with particular emphasis placed on the implications for the host community. Board members will be able to see how their community fares in the context of the entire region and with neighboring communities.

Basic questions can be addressed, such as:

• Does my town have the ability to very grow much in the years ahead?
• What types of development is it most suited for?
• Where is the most suitable land for economic development?

In this way, meaningful discussions can occur surrounding strategies for limiting/ promoting growth and decisions can be based upon a good understanding of the long range growth prospects for the town. Two communities in the region have expressed interest in sponsoring community wide forums where the model will be used to facilitate discussion.

The second use of the model at the community level is within the context of a local comprehensive plan. Since the model is intended for use at a regional scale, data layers created for 40 communities necessarily had to rely on existing data or the economical creation of new data. More accurate data will be needed to improve its usefulness for community planning. Two examples: attributes would need to be added to water and sewer coverages to indicate actual capacity to accommodate additional flows; and rather than buffers around existing water and sewer lines, the actual limits of a service area would need to be specified. Parcel data, while not necessary for analysis purposes would offer the ability to identify property owners who would be affected by contemplated land use policies.

And thirdly, the model can be used in other regional applications. Staff submitted an application to DEP to use the model in a non-point pollution program in the Blackstone Valley. The model could be used to identify the location of future growth in this region, with pollutant loading models used to prepare estimates of pollution that would be generated by this growth. Armed with an understanding of environmental consequences of growth, state and local officials would be able to plan remediation efforts to areas that would have the most severe impacts.

Such new applications will require the refinement of existing data sets or the creation of new layers of data. The model is capable of adding new layers easily merely by changing the weights of the various factors. It is hoped that the model can provide reliable inputs to the transportation planners when the Regional Transportation Plan is prepared. In addition to land use, transportation, and environmental planning applications, the model can be used for economic development assessment and open space acquisition planning.

CMRPC staff certainly encourages other regional planning commissions, state agencies, and universities to undertake their own modeling efforts to advance the current state of understanding on modeling. Other approaches, perhaps using vector-based software, rather than a raster- based product, could be tried, or other data sets incorporated to improve the reliability of the model. We are willing to share with other planners and GIS technicians the approach used in this model to shorten the learning curve and take advantage of the expertise gained in this study.