Merrimack River District Planning
Community Benefits Assessment Model for the City of Amesbury, MA
CLIENT: City of Amesbury, MA and Dodson & Flinker
TEAM: Judi Barrett, Principal, Catherine Dennison, Community Planning Associate, Alexis Lanzillotta, Project Manager
The City of Amesbury and Dodson & Flinker asked Barrett Planning Group to design a Community Benefits Model to assess potential benefits and tradeoffs of proposed development opportunities and policy decisions throughout Amesbury. The Excel-based tool allows decision-makers to rate the degree to which a proposal meets residents’ goals for their community and its future, determined through the City’s master plan survey and a survey conducted for this project. The model’s primary purpose is to support land use policy conversations among Amesbury’s leadership, staff, residents, and developers, and to help them understand and advocate for the wants and needs of the community. It gives the City a way to assess potential impacts and analyze otherwise hard-to-quantify values and priorities, as well as a framework for reasoning through a decision process and documenting benefits and drawbacks.
The model assigns point values to benefit categories and individual goals, with weighting based upon the results of a community survey. Categories and weights are easy to adjust and update according to community input as the city continues to grow and change. Benefits fall into six categories:
Social Benefits: support a healthy and equitable community
Cultural Benefits: contribute to what makes Amesbury special including history, art, and learning
Economic Benefits: support local businesses and jobs
Fiscal Benefits: generate tax revenue or diversify the tax base
Transportation Benefits: improve traffic and circulation, safety, and multimodal connectivity
Environmental Benefits: protect natural resources and support climate resilience
This approach expresses community priorities clearly and concisely, and supports conversation, collaboration, transparency, and consistency in City land use decisions.
Barrett Planning Group LLC provides high-quality, customized planning and community development services for cities and towns and non-profit organizations throughout greater Massachusetts and New England. Barrett Planning Group is known for our creative approach to planning and problem-solving, our expertise as trainers and technical assistance providers, our attentiveness to clients, and our expertise in capacity building.
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