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The Metropolitan Area Planning Council is the regional planning and economic development district representing 101 cities and towns in metropolitan Boston. In addition, the Council shares oversight responsibility for the region’s federally funded transportation program as one of 14 members of the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization. The Council’s legislative mandate is to provide technical and professional resources to improve the physical, social and economic condition of its district, and to develop sound responses to issues of regional
significance. The Council provides research, studies, publications, facilitation and technical assistance in the areas of land use and the environment, housing, transportation, water resources management, economic development, demographic and socioeconomic data, legislative policy and interlocal partnerships that strengthen the operation of local governments.
The Council is governed by 101 municipal government representatives, 21 gubernatorial appointees, and 10 state and 3 city of Boston officials. An Executive Committee composed of 25 members oversees agency operations and appoints an executive director. The agency employs approximately 30 professional and administrative staff. Funding for Council activities is derived from contracts with government agencies and private entities, foundation grants, and a per-capita assessment charged to municipalities within the district.
In the past year, the Council has focused on initiatives that respond to regional challenges, including:
· Municipal planning: Working with more than 25 communities under the Executive Order 418 program. EO 418 provides communities with up to $30,000 in state funding to undertake overall visioning on local planning issues, including housing, economic development, natural resources, and transportation.
· Bringing advanced technology to cities and towns in the region: A contract with Pictometry International will provide aerial photographic images that municipal departments, including police and fire, can utilize to improve service delivery.
· Adoption of smart growth principles: MAPC developed and adopted principles of good planning practice that will encourage sustainable patterns of growth to benefit people living throughout the metro Boston region. MAPC is also a founding member of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance.
· Metro Data Center: The Center is an official US Census affiliate, helping to distribute demographic data throughout the region, including demographic, economic, and housing profiles for all 101 communities in metro Boston.
· Transportation planning: As vice chair of the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization, MAPC worked to develop the 25-year Regional Transportation Plan as well as the annual Transportation Improvement Program, including transportation spending priorities for the region. We also spearheaded development of transportation spending criteria, taking into account environmental, economic, and equity considerations.
· Metropolitan Highway System Advisory Board: MAPC staffs this board, established in 1997 by the Commonwealth to advise the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority on issues relative to land use, air rights, zoning, and environmental impacts associated with development of land owned by the authority.
· Regional Services Consortiums: The four regional consortiums established by MAPC collectively purchased~$18 million in office supplies and~highway maintenance~services~for its 31 member municipalities.~ The project also facilitates collegial forums among members' chief administrative officers focused on collaborative problem solving and resource sharing.
· Metro Mayors Coalition: Working with the mayors and city managers of 10 municipalities in the urban core on issues such as group purchasing, employee health insurance, security and emergency coordination, and municipal relief legislation.
· Homeland security: Addressing homeland security issues by facilitating cross-municipal partnerships between police, fire, and emergency management departments to acquire and share equipment, and more generally to plan for emergencies involving multiple municipalities.
· Hazard mitigation: Initiating a federally-funded partnership to produce a hazard mitigation plan to protect nine coastal communities in the event of natural disasters, including flood, winter storm, wind, fire, and geologic hazards.
Please visit the MAPC website, www.mapc.org, for more details about these and other activities.
Metrofuture: Making a Greater Boston Region
MAPC has launched a new civic process, called MetroFuture, to create an updated regional vision and growth strategy for metropolitan Boston. MetroFuture engages city and town governments, state agencies, non-profits, business, labor and academic groups in this planning process. The outcome will be a vision and growth strategy that puts the region on a sustainable path in terms of land use, economic, environmental and social issues. MAPC will need the support of a broad range of organizations in the region to help plan, fund and implement this new framework for addressing the challenges facing metropolitan Boston.
The effort to create this new strategy was launched on October 29, 2003 at a Boston College Citizens Seminar. More than 400 citizens from a wide range of local and regional groups attended the event, and expressed their opinions on the region’s resources and challenges as well as their own visions for the future. This input will be critical as we move to the next phase of this exciting multi-year project. Please visit the project web site, www.metrofuture.org, for more information.
Inner Core Committee
The Inner Core Committee (ICC) determined overall transportation goals for the sub region and prioritized transportation projects. It then used these results to review the draft Regional Transportation Program, Transportation Improvement Program, and Unified Planning Work Program and provided comments to the Metropolitan Planning Organization. In addition, the ICC began planning for the Inner Core Regional Visioning and Growth Strategy events, created a spin-off committee to help plan the events, reviewed and forwarded comments on the Land Use Reform Act to MAPC’s Legislative Committee, and developed guidelines for reviewing and commenting on large-scale projects in the sub region. The committee hosted meetings on a variety of planning topics including economic development funding programs, the MBTA’s land
disposition program, and Department of Housing and Community Development’s Planned Production Guidelines. In addition to ICC members, others, including state agencies, local community development corporations, and residents of the sub region attended these meetings.
Respectfully submitted,
Marc D. Draisen, Executive Director, Metropolitan Area Planning Council
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