The Harvard Planning Board is responsible for all planning functions within the town, such as the enforcement of bylaws about size, setbacks from roads and property lines, and other zoning laws governing land use in Harvard. This is a very broad purview that encompasses many hours and a lot of work by its members.
One of the most difficult jobs of the Planning Board is to produce a long-term plan that considers where the town sees itself in the immediate and the long term, and how it can help the town achieve this vision. As is evident from driving the nearby highways and state roads, neighboring towns are expanding at a noticeable clip. Development and expansion is a wave that is coming to Harvard. While we have largely been able to preserve the rural character of the town, this effort will become increasingly difficult as it becomes apparent that the characteristics that make Harvard a wonderful place to live and raise a family translate to real financial incentives to develop and settle in Harvard. The town and its Planning Board need to think about how to manage these forces and guide development to be consistent with our vision of Harvard. The tools at our disposal to do so are substantially underdeveloped.
In an effort to expand our toolbox, Harvard’s Planning Board will be presenting a guest speaker, planning expert Randall Arendt, to talk about the ways in which Harvard could use zoning bylaws to preserve its character. Arendt will speak at a workshop at the Bromfield School on Thursday, Feb. 6, from 5:45 to 9 p.m. Arendt is an internationally recognized landscape planner as well as a pioneer and leader in thinking about and promoting the preservation of open space as part of residential design. This approach is known as conservation subdivision design, or open-space residential design. Many people from Harvard and surrounding towns will be attending to better understand how the preservation of open space can be practically integrated in development plans and in the bylaws that govern those plans. Arendt will be discussing the concept of using conservation as a core principle guiding development projects, and leading a design exercise using an example from Harvard.
Shaping development according to how the town sees itself in the future is a critical and forward-thinking process that needs input from everyone. Development is coming to Harvard, and it is up to us to determine how we want it to appear and function. It is through these types of workshops as well as Planning Board and Select Board meetings that the conversations will take place, and we invite you to attend and play a role as this process moves forward.
R.J. Rushmore is a member of the Harvard Planning Board and presents this column on the board’s behalf.
