SRPEDD to Present Final Regional Priority Areas Plan (PDA/PPA)
The Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District (SRPEDD) will be hosting a Holiday Networking Event and Open House to present a final draft update of the region’s Priority Development Areas (PDAs) and Priority Preservation Areas (PPAs) at Cork and Wine Tapas in New Bedford on Thursday, December 19, 2024, from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM. The event will also be the quarterly meeting of the Regional Economic Strategy Committee (RESC). Please join us to review and comment on this work! Those interested in attending can register here.
Background from 2008 and 2013
Working with communities to plan for potential growth and the arrival of South Coast Rail (SCR) passenger service has remained a long-standing priority for MBTA and SRPEDD.
In 2008, SRPEDD, along with other Regional Planning Agencies (RPAs), partnered with individual municipalities and the Commonwealth to develop a comprehensive regional land use strategy for the region. Designating PDAs and PPAs allowed communities to identify local areas that were appropriate for growth as well as areas necessary to preserve for ecological, cultural, or recreational purposes. This planning process ensured that community voices and priorities were represented in local, regional, and statewide decision-making.
Five years later, in 2013, SRPEDD and sister RPAs worked to revisit and refine these original PDA and PPA designations by conducting over 100 meetings and working sessions and deploying significant Geographic Information System (GIS) data and policy analysis. This “Five-Year update” resulted in the 2013 Community Priority Areas of Regional Significance report.
2023/2024 Update
Over the past year and a half (a decade after the last update), SRPEDD staff have once again collaborated with municipal and community leaders in all 27 of the agency’s service communities in another series of presentations, working sessions, and policy and report reviews. Throughout this engagement process, cities and towns designated new PDAs and PPAs and otherwise refined and updated their existing designations to align with current community goals.
Equipped with this local knowledge, SRPEDD staff also reviewed the community PDAs and PPAs using a Regional Screening process that measured the suitability of each of the local designations for future development and preservation activities. Through this methodology, SRPEDD identified areas of regional significance from among the city and town PDAs and PPAs. Examples of these 2024 Community Priority Areas of Regional Significance can be found in the case studies outlined in the project’s interactive Story Map.
This project was by funded by the MBTA and the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities’ (EOHLC) District Local Technical Assistance (DLTA) program.
Resources
- PDA/PPA Project Page (www.srpedd.org/Priority-Areas)
- 2024 PDA/PPA Story Map