Swampscott Lands $25,000 Grant For Community Visioning Study

Town Planner Pete Kane announced to Planning Board members on Monday that the town was selected by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to receive a $25,000 grant for a community visioning study.

The Planning Board has also sponsored a warrant article for the same figure, $25,000, funding that would be used to enlarge the study.

The visioning study will include topic-specific town working group sessions, a community-wide workshop, surveys, analysis and reports.

The MAPC will carry out the study, assigning planners and consultants to the project.

The study will consider strengths and weaknesses as they apply to economic development along Humphrey Street and by the Swampscott Train Station.

"The study will provide a 'vision' of what is possible and desired for the development of the town and will be utilitized as the first phase in developing an updated Master Plan," according to a draft of the proposed town meeting article.

Planning Board members welcomed news of the grant which comes with no required match or any strings, the town planner said.

"That's fantastic, I mean $25,000 ...," said board member Sylvia Belkin.

Board members also learned that residents responded in large numbers to a community survey sent out to residents earlier this year.

The town planner reported that the town received almost 1,900 survey responses, 1,800 of which were hard-copy, paper responses, the others filed electronically.

The strong response helped the town in its pursuit of the competitive grant from the MAPC, called an MAPC District Local Technical Assistance grant, Kane said.

It also augurs well for strong community participation in the MAPC study, Kane said.

The results of the community survey will be released to the public after they are approved by the board.

In addition, board members plan to present some of the survey comments and results to selectman at an upcoming meeting.