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Plymouth, New Hampshire’s Housing Chapter & Upcoming Design Charette

Posted on by alisa@barrettplanningllc.com

Plymouth, New Hampshire, is updating its Master Plan by adding a new component – Housing. Funded by the Housing Opportunity Planning (HOP) grant program, this project aims to provide goals and strategies for Plymouth to meet housing needs and guide future development. Our work with Plymouth builds on recent efforts by the Plymouth Planning Board to remove regulatory barriers to housing growth by updating the Town’s zoning ordinance.

A regional hub linking New Hampshire’s White Mountains and Lakes regions, Plymouth is home to a lively downtown, Plymouth State University (PSU), Speare Hospital, the Tenney Mountain ski area, and many other assets. In recent years, Plymouth’s housing market has changed. Declining enrollment at PSU has reduced the demand for off-campus housing. In addition, rising housing costs and high property taxes have diminished Plymouth’s affordability, especially for people who work in the town. Meanwhile, Plymouth is experiencing growth in demand for seasonal housing and short-term rentals.   

With a grant from New Hampshire’s Housing Opportunity Program (HOP), the Plymouth Planning Board engaged Barrett Planning Group to prepare a housing needs assessment and an audit of Plymouth’s land use regulations. This work resulted in numerous recommendations to clarify Plymouth’s zoning and subdivision regulations, allowing more multifamily residential use by-right, and modernizing parking standards. Since then, the Town has implemented many of these recommendations, including new overlay districts for Fairgrounds Road and Tenney Mountain.

Today, we are working with the Planning Board to develop a new element for the Plymouth Master Plan, focusing on housing. To do this, we launched a Six-Word Story exercise to have community members share their vision of “home.” We also conducted stakeholder interviews and hosted a community meeting in March 2026. Residents explored opportunities for neighborhood-scale density, small units for young adults and seniors, and balancing housing needs with natural resources. They also noted some of the town’s challenges, notably the lack of developable land and the cost of infrastructure and utilities. The new Housing section of Plymouth’s Master Plan will draw from community input, data, geographic analysis, and consultations with the Planning Board.

In a related project, Plymouth is concurrently planning a Community Design Charette in May 2026 for Railroad Square: a street between its downtown center and the Pemigewasset River with a mix of different buildings and activities. Prior to the 1950s, the adjacent railroads connected Montreal and Boston via Plymouth. Today, only a tourist train runs through in the summer, though the area still has some activity with the nearby senior center, outdoor amphitheater, skate park, and Main Street shops. This two-day charette, organized by PlanNH, will ask community members to reimagine what this space could be.

For more information on Plymouth’s upcoming Housing Chapter visit: https://www.plymouthnh.gov/projects/housing_chapter.php

To learn more about PlanNH’s Community Design Charette visit: https://www.plymouthnh.gov/departments/railroad_square.php

Salisbury Master Plan Update

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Master Plan Update for the Town of Salisbury, MA

Salisbury Town Hall, Salisbury, Massachusetts. Click to enlarge photo.
Town of Salisbury Transportation Snapshot, Salisbury Master Plan Update with Barrett Planning Group. Click to enlarge the graphic.

The Town of Salisbury hired Barrett Planning Group to partially update its 2008 Master Plan. Our team, in cooperation with Town Staff and a local Master Plan Committee, crafted new existing conditions reports and new sets of long-term goals and strategies for five elements: Land Use, Transportation, Community Health, Climate Change, and Economic Development.

We also developed an implementation plan to guide the Town over the plan’s fifteen-year lifespan. We conducted a community-wide survey and held two public community meetings to support this effort, offering in-person and remote options for both. We used mapping exercises, small and large group discussions, and open house-style stations to engage with the community about their vision for Salisbury’s future.

We produced a succinct but content-rich final document including maps and infographics for every chapter, which was adopted by the Salisbury Planning Board in October 2022.

Map of Town of Salisbury, Massachusetts, showing Sea Level Rise. Click to view larger.

Brewster Housing Production Plan

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Town of Brewster Massachusetts 2022-2027 Housing Production Plan

The Town of Brewster hired Barrett Planning Group LLC to update their 2017 Housing Production Plan (HPP) in January 2022. Over a six-month period, our team collaborated closely with Town staff and the Brewster Housing Partnership to develop a plan that outlined realistic strategies for addressing Brewster’s unique housing challenges as a coastal community with an increasing demand for seasonal and short-term rentals, sensitive environmental concerns, and a seemingly growing household income gap.

We grounded the plan’s development by centering our community engagement around:

  • The state’s required framework for HPPs under Chapter 40B
  • Progress the Town made in implementing the 2017 HPP
  • Changes in demographic and market trends — and resulting housing needs — at the local and regional level
  • Feedback from the community, including those experiencing housing instability themselves and those who work directly with households requiring assistance
  • The HPP’s relationship to other local and regional planning efforts, most notably the Town’s Local Comprehensive Plan and the Cape Cod Commission’s Regional Policy Plan

After drafting the plan’s strategies, we engaged various community partners instrumental to the HPP’s implementation — including Town staff, members from various Town bodies, realtors, developers, housing and service providers, and others — to ensure the solutions we proposed were feasible and actionable. The Town’s Planning Board and Select Board were presented with the draft HPP in June 2022 and given opportunity to provide feedback before they unanimously approved the plan in July 2022. The MA Department of Housing and Community Development approved the plan in August 2022.

Berkshire Housing Development Corp

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Berkshire Housing Development Corporation (BHDC) asked Barrett Planning Group LLC to assist with program design for a Housing Resource Center focused on homelessness in downtown Pittsfield. Well known for its many years of work as an affordable housing developer and provider of regional housing services, BHDC decided to take on a project specifically focused on homelessness by filling a gap in the existing network of services in Berkshire County.

Our work followed an agreement between BHDC and the City to develop a housing resource center alongside affordable housing, thereby co-locating services to better serve people experiencing homelessness and housing instability in Pittsfield.

We led an extensive consultation process with other Berkshire County groups working to address homelessness, including emergency shelter, mental health, substance abuse, family services, domestic violence, health care professionals, faith communities, and others, along with City staff. In addition, we met with people experiencing homelessness in order to learn from them how the Housing Resource Center could be most beneficial to them.

These conversations influenced our program design recommendations and the Request for Proposals (RFP) we prepared for BHDC to find an organization to manage the Housing Resource Center.

BHDC is using our work to obtain funding from the Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance (MHSA) and other agencies.

From the client: “Berkshire Housing needed a consultant to undertake a non-traditional project that would engage community partners and people with lived experience as well as research national best practices. Barrett Planning Group enthusiastically stepped up to the challenge.

With their strong technical skills, adaptability and committed team, we not only had a lot of fun working together, but we also got just what we needed! The technical report was well researched and well written, and will serve to effectively guide our community in future decisions.”

Town of Bridgewater Comprehensive Master Plan

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Town of Bridgewater MA Comprehensive Master Plan

Bridgewater, Massachusetts

Barrett Planning Group began working with the Town of Bridgewater in 2018 to develop Phase I of a master plan. Our initial scope of work included developing a plan vision, overarching goals, and existing conditions reports for the master plan elements described in G.L. c. 41, § 81D, with our partners at McMahon Associates crafting the transportation element. Home to several state institutions including Bridgewater State University, an MBTA Commuter Rail station, and the Old Colony Correctional Center, the Town has unique opportunities and challenges that shape conversations about land use and comprehensive planning that we considered from the outset of our work.

We began the process working with an appointed Comprehensive Master Plan Committee (CMPC) and conducting focus groups with staff, Town officials, business owners, and other stakeholders. We launched the public face of the project with a community visioning session for citizens to share their aspirations for Bridgewater’s future. This event was closely followed by a workshop for residents to discuss the continued relevance of the Town’s 2002 master plan goals. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we shifted to virtual engagement opportunities, including an online survey of draft goals and strategies developed with the CMPC to ensure our understanding of the community’s priorities was on target.

At this time, the Town approached us about continuing the project beyond Phase I to develop an implementation program. After addressing CMPC and staff comments on draft existing conditions reports, we finalized our work with the CMPC and began developing implementation program with Town staff. We held a public implementation workshop to allow the community to provide additional input on draft recommendations.

Final recommendations and an accompanying implementation program were paired with our Phase I work to create a complete master plan. In the early months of 2022, we worked with the Planning Board to refine the final plan, which the Board unanimously approved in May 2022.