Natick's strategic goals being finalized
By Andrew J. Manuse/Daily News staff
MetroWest Daily News
Sun Nov 11, 2007

NATICK -

Five local boards are finalizing a list of about a dozen goals that will help the Natick 360 Committee complete the five-year strategic plan it's preparing.

Rather than specifically say the town needs a new high school or a senior community center, the goals are more general. Those suggestions would fall into a broad goal to "develop and implement a plan for extraordinary capital projects," according to the draft list.

A specific idea such as "facilitate affordable housing to gain control of development and maintain economic diversity" would fall under the general goal to "proactively plan for new development appropriate for neighborhoods and the community," for example.

Craig Ross, co-chairman of the Strategic Planning Oversight Committee, which is coordinating the five boards' efforts as part of the Natick 360 process, said the Board of Selectmen, the Planning Board and the Finance Committee have already weighed in on the consolidated goals. The School Committee and Conservation Commission are expected to add their stamp of approval or minor modifications later this week, he said.

Once the five boards approve the list of "consolidated goals," each will meet separately and list the "action items" under those goals that they intend to pursue in the five years after the final report is ratified, he said.

"The guidance we're giving them, is we have five autonomous boards that can choose any way to implement actions to reach the consolidated goals," Ross said.

Besides the two consolidated goals mentioned above, other proposals include assuring short- and long-term financial stability for the town, keeping the public informed and involved in their local government, maintaining public safety commensurate with growth and change, improving education for all children, developing a system to maintain infrastructure, improving traffic, encouraging environmental sustainability, attracting high-quality jobs, improving Natick Center and providing opportunities for residents to improve themselves.

Ross said he expects the final action list that will stem from the consolidated goals to be compiled in December and hopes Town Meeting will ratify the final five-year strategic plan in the spring.

(Andrew J. Manuse can be reached at amanuse@cnc.com or 508-626-3964.)

Natick residents value safety and education, survey finds
By Andrew J. Manuse/Daily News staff
Wed Sep 26, 2007

Natick -

Most people move here and stay because of a low crime rate and the quality of schools; and they also enjoy the low tax rate, according to a random survey of 1,192 residents.

Kansas-based ETC Institute administered the strategic planning survey in July, and will present the results at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Wilson Middle School auditorium.

Natick's Strategic Planning Oversight Committee, which is overseeing the Natick 360 process, anticipated 800 responses to the survey, which it commissioned.

The 50 percent response rate of 1,192 residents across town has left organizers feeling the entire community is represented by the results, according to Craig Ross, co-chairman of the oversight committee.

Going forward, residents are evenly split on whether property taxes should be raised to cover the cost of public services, the survey found. While 61 percent of the public is willing to consider some increase in taxes, only 20 percent said they would pay more to keep the town from cutting services; 20 percent said they would pay more to cover rising costs, but would accept some service cuts; and 21 percent said the town should mostly cut services, but they would agree to pay modest tax increases.

Among the top priorities for survey respondents were improving educational outcomes for students, building a new high school, maintaining public safety services commensurate with growth, improving traffic flow on major routes and reducing negative impacts on the environment.

"The survey results will be used to inform Natick 360's five sponsoring boards what the community is thinking," Ross said.

The committee worked with Blackerby Associates to come up with the strategic options.

All of these efforts are leading to a final Natick 360 report that will state what the town valued historically, deems important currently and wants for its strategic direction in the next five years. The committee is hoping to seek final approval of the report by Thanksgiving from the sponsoring boards - the Board of Selectmen, Planning Board, Finance Committee, School Committee and Conservation Commission. Once the boards approve the report, it will go before spring Town Meeting for adoption.

Town Meeting allocated about $150,000 to Natick 360 and local businesses donated about $39,000 to the process. The money has been used to pay Blackerby and ETC Institute.

(Andrew J. Manuse can be reached at 508-626-3964 or amanuse@cnc.com.)

Natick 360 event considered successful
By Andrew J. Manuse/Daily News staff
Fri Jun 15, 2007

Natick -

About three-quarters of residents who registered to participate in a strategic planning meeting this past weekend showed up for at least one of six scheduled sessions, an organizer said yesterday.

The weekend event, planned by the nine-member Natick 360 resident committee and its consultant, Blackerby Associates, was one of the final steps in a long-range planning process. Members of the public were asked to weigh in on the projects, programs and policies they want to see the town pursue.

"A lot of people got a lot out of the process and a better appreciation for the scope and scale of things the town is considering," said Craig Ross, Natick 360's co-chairman.

For the weekend, 141 of the 199 who registered showed up. Ross attributed lower-than-expected attendance to rain Saturday, which encouraged people to take advantage of the sun on Sunday.

He stressed, however, that 70 new people registered to participate in the weekend's events who had not otherwise taken part in the process since Town Meeting set up Natick 360 in April 2005.

Attendants spent 2<+>1<+>/<->2<-> hours in sessions with facilitators in groups of 12 to 15 and were given a list of goals in Natick 360's report of strategic options. Groups ranked the 10 ideas they thought were most important for the town to tackle within two years, before five years and after a five-year period.

Options in the report range from building a new high school and senior center to creating a Cochituate Rail Trail, smart development and helping to improve traffic on Rte. 9.

Ross said the ranking of options from the weekend would not be available until combined with results from a survey the committee's consultant, ETC Institute, will send out to about 800 Natick households early next month.

He said the committee would set up materials used in planning sessions on its Web site, Natick360.org, so people who couldn't make it to weekend sessions could still rank the strategic options important to them. The interactive Web site will ready next week, Ross said.

The group intends to send the Natick 360 report, with finalized rankings, to the five sponsoring boards - the Board of Selectmen, Planning Board, Finance Committee, School Committee and Conservation Commission - for approval. Then, the report will go before Town Meeting in October.

Sponsoring board members, town department heads, local business leaders, focus groups and the general public helped generate the strategic options in the report and consulting firm Blackerby has helped to coordinate the process.

Town Meeting allocated about $150,000 to Natick 360, which has been used to pay Blackerby and for other purposes. So far, Natick 360 has stayed on schedule and on budget, Ross said. The group has also raised about $39,000 from local businesses that it will use in part to pay ETC Institute to conduct the survey.

(Andrew J. Manuse can be reached at 508-626-3964 or amanuse@cnc.com.)

Natick planning effort slated for this weekend
By Andrew J. Manuse/Daily News Staff
Jun 06, 2007

Natick -

Residents this weekend will review the long-range strategic planning effort known as Natick 360 and rank a list of possible actions to guide the town's future for the next five years.

By Friday, the Board of Selectmen, Planning Board, Finance Committee, School Committee and Conservation Commission will have signed off on the Natick 360 document, which includes some 110 strategic options that community members came up with as part of the Natick 360 process.

Then it will be up to residents this weekend to outline the town projects, programs and policies they want town officials to focus on in the next five years. Residents will also have to be willing to pay for the items, which have been assigned an estimated cost in the report.

"We're making a conscious effort to take a long-range view and plan specific steps to move toward the long-term vision, as opposed to reacting to one critical issue after another that gets put in front of the community," said Craig Ross, the organization's co-chairman. "It's an innovative project, it's challenging and there are a lot of moving parts."

The planning weekend begins at 7 p.m. Friday at Kennedy Middle School, when Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, will deliver a keynote speech about a regional planning effort called Metro Future.

Then, acting Town Administrator Martha White will give a summary of the town's budget situation, and Consulting firm Blackerby Associates of Arizona, which has been assisting in the Natick 360 effort, will tell participants about the upcoming 2<+>1<+>/<->2<->-hour workshops at 8 and 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

During the workshops, any Natick resident can attend and help prioritize the strategic options, from building a new high school and senior center to creating the Cochituate Rail Trail and helping to improve traffic on Rte. 9. The options are divided in seven categories, including: public education; civic engagement and leadership; environment, health and safety; enlivening Natick Center; improving the town's infrastructure and transportation options; planning for change and managing growth; and town financing strategies.

After the weekend effort, ETC Institute of Kansas will develop a survey based on the results to send out to at least 800 households in July. The final results will be approved by the five sponsoring boards, then will head to Town Meeting in October to be adopted.

The strategic plan is not binding, but it will give the five sponsoring boards and Town Meeting a barometer of the community's desires, Ross said.

"What happens next is it's up to the individual boards that have jurisdiction to take things off the plan, put them onto their agendas and get things done," he said.

Natick 360 is managed by a nine-member resident committee and was spawned by Town Meeting in April 2005. Sponsoring board members, town department heads, local business leaders, focus groups and the general public helped generate the strategic options in the report and consulting firm Blackerby has helped to coordinate the process.

Town Meeting allocated about $150,000 to the process, which has been used to pay Blackerby and for other purposes. So far, Natick 360 has stayed on schedule and on budget, Ross said. The group has also raised about $38,000 from local businesses that it will use in part to pay ETC Institute to conduct the survey.

(Andrew J. Manuse can be reached at 508-626-3964 or amanuse@cnc.com.)

Natick strategic planning process in final stages
By Andrew J. Manuse/Daily News staff
May 04, 2007

Town officials behind the long-range strategic planning effort known as Natick 360 are preparing a menu of possible actions that residents will pick from to help direct the town's future.

The Board of Selectmen, Planning Board, Finance Committee, School Committee and Conservation Commission will meet this month to weed out some of the 110 strategic options that community members came up with as part of the Natick 360 process, said Craig Ross, the organization's co-chairman.

Natick 360 is managed by a nine-member resident committee and was spawned by Town Meeting in April 2005.

"I don't know what will come out of the process," Ross said. "I recognize that what ultimately ends up before the public could be 50 percent or less of what is on the list now."

The ideas, meant to help the community prioritize town projects, programs and policies for the next five years and beyond, were generated from the sponsoring board members, town department heads, local business leaders, focus groups and the general public.

They are divided into seven sections in a draft report: namely, public education; civic engagement and leadership; environment, health and safety; Natick Center; infrastructure and transportation; managing growth; and financing strategies.

At least one of the strategic options has already been accomplished. The Board of Selectmen on Monday decided to join the Regional Transportation Authority while maintaining the RIDE program for people with disabilities.

Other infrastructure improvements on the list are still under consideration, such as requiring sidewalks to be installed whenever new streets are accepted or existing streets are improved; building an overpass at the Oak Street-Rte. 9 intersection to improve traffic flow; and engaging the state, Wellesley and Framingham in regional improvements to Rte. 9.

Education goals on the list include building a new high school with green building design and materials that can be used by students and other residents or renovating and updating the existing Natick High School.

Improving the town Web site by posting more pertinent information online, preparing a town "owner's manual," purchasing Agricultural Preservation Restrictions for local farmlands, buying land for open space, building a downtown parking garage, publishing a simplified budget report, balancing the budget and managing growth are among a host of other goals listed.

"The financial situation of the town is something we're planning to educate the public about," Ross said. "When everyone is dreaming about things that can be done, we have to know the financial realities."

The public will weigh in on a slimmed down list of strategic options during a June 8-10 Strategic Choices Weekend at Kennedy Middle School. Each strategic option listed on a menu will have a description and estimated cost, Ross said.

Priorities will be finalized through the efforts of a professional research firm that will conduct a random poll and get a better sense of the overall community's goals in July. The town has already posted a request for proposals from research organizations, Ross said.

The ultimate goal for the group is to submit a strategic plan for approval at Fall Town Meeting, he said.

(Andrew J. Manuse can be reached at amanuse@cnc.com.)

Planning process could be guide for state, neighbors
By Andrew J. Manuse/Daily News staff
Associated Press
Feb 14, 2007

NATICK - A Natick 360 director said Tuesday the town's long-range planning process could be used as ``a model of civic engagement'' for the state and other Massachusetts communities.

The Natick 360 process, managed by a nine-member resident committee, attempts to develop with town residents a long-range strategy for improving the community while maintaining a hold onto its roots. The effort, launched out of Town Meeting in April 2005, is now seeking strategic options for the town.

As a part of the process, Natick 360 met with key players from outside the town such as Ted Welte from the Framingham-based MetroWest Chamber of Commerce and Conrad Crawford of Gov. Deval Patrick's executive office of transportation and construction to brainstorm potential goals.

Ideas included solving existing traffic and parking problems, forming regional alliances to leverage collective resources, building a new high school and community center, connecting the town's center with the Golden Triangle shopping area, and making natural resource conservation a standard practice.

At the meeting, Natick 360 co-Chairman Craig Ross called the overall process a ``model of civic engagement'' and ``an experiment in participatory democracy.''

``This is a rare occurrence where state agencies and representatives can look at a community's innovative approach,'' Ross said. ``I think it's a model other communities can follow.''

The committee used $119,700 of its budget to hire Blackerby Associates of Arizona, which helped facilitate the meeting yesterday. Natick 360 received $150,000 from Town Meeting and about $28,000 from local businesses for the project.

``The idea is to identify where the town falls short of its own vision, its aspirations and what kind of policies, programs and projects can fill those gaps,'' said Phillip Blackerby of Blackerby Associates. ``Then we can figure out how much each idea will cost.''

In the final phase this June, Natick residents will pick from a menu of options and their costs for the town to use going forward, then Town Meeting will vote on a final strategic plan.

``We don't want this to be another plan that sits on a shelf,'' Town Administrator Phil Lemnios said. ``We expect it to be a plan that the public can follow and that they can see the outcome.''

For more information, visit www.Natick360.org.

Youthful ideas for downtown
By Kathy Uek
Friday, April 06, 2007

A community center, a parking garage with a cafe and a dressed-up alley are some of the projects 17 students envision for Natick's Center.

In Kids Create Natick Center, an innovative five-week program, students from Natick High and Kennedy and Wilson Middle schools used real world planning maps and architectural tools to plan a Natick Center they want.

Students in Kids Create Natick Center worked with teachers and architects, Avigail Shimshoni of Natick and Ann Sussman of Acton, and created models and collages of their vision.

Abby Craig and Molly McEachern, both eighth-graders, chose to make the alley on Adams Street in downtown Natick more attractive by adding awnings and flower boxes to the buildings.

Seventh grader Sarah McEachern designed a ’50s-style cafe at the train stop with a playground nearby.

As part of the Kids Create project, students looked at photos of Natick's past and discovered the town once had a fountain with a street light at the intersection of Main Street and Rte. 27," said Ann Sussman. "They all fell in love with it. It was a symbol of the center. Three different groups of students worked on a project rediscovering the fountain."

Natick High senior Aly Goldman worked on a new multi-level parking garage with a cafe.

"She was very interested that the facade would fit in with Natick's architecture and look like a building and not just a slab for a garage," said Shimshoni.

According to Sussman, Aly was also concerned that the garage be an active and interesting part of the street, which is why she had cafe on the ground floor.

Seventh-grader Matt Schneider said Natick needed a community center and made a programmatic study of what it would look like. "He tried to show a pool, a fitness room and an event hall and he did it all to scale to fit on the site in place of the missing tooth building," Sussman said.

Eighth-graders Matt Eldridge and Spencer Cohen designed a reflecting wading pool with a bridge over it for the common with two fountains nearby, according to Sussman.

Sussman works with Learning By Design, a design education program of the Boston Society of Architects. At Community Visioning, which is part of Learning By Design, Sussman has worked in several area cities and towns and plans to take the community planning project state wide.

"It makes it more democratic," she said. "In this case the people are doing the architecture. The program teaches people to read and work with plans. To explore the concepts that could improve Natick."

According to Program Director Deb Sayre at Kids Connect, students learned architectural skills and worked with large models and plans. "The kids loved it. The creativity of the kids was incredible."

Every Wednesday from Feb. 28 to March 28, the students met for two hours — for a total of 10 hours. Some worked individually on a project, while others worked as a group.

"People underestimate what the kids can do, said Shimshoni, a board member of Natick Center Associates, who represents them on the design review board. She has also been involved in educating children in schools about Natick Center.

During Kids Create Natick Center, Shimshoni's children Nitzan and Lior Zippel, 9 and 7 respectively, sometimes helped out.

"It's amazing the kids really care about their town," said Shimshoni. "I loved every minute of it. I thought it was very enlightening to see a group of youths so committed and interested in their town. They had great ideas."

The Kids Create Natick Center received funding from the Boston Foundation for Architecture. It received additional funding from Natick Center Associates and was run in coordination with Natick 360, the town of Natick's strategic planning initiative. Many Natick citizens as well as Learning By Design, a children's design education program of the Boston Society of Architects, contributed additional logistical support.

"It was incredible how much support, help and advice we got from the community including Gini Lyster from the Historical Commission who provided a lot of materials and worked with the kids, the GAS in the DPW, which made maps possible for us and talked to the students, Natick Center Associates provided funds so the children didn't have to pay for the materials, the 360 was very supportive throughout the project and Abby Reidy from the library and Debsan also helped," said Avigail.

Students plan to present models and collages of their ideas for Natick Center's future at the Wilson Middle School gym Tuesday, April 10, from 7 to 7:25. The presentation is a special event just prior to Town Meeting which convenes in the Wilson auditorium at 7:30 PM.

Please note because of the recent voting issues, Selectmen will decide Wednesday evening if Town Meeting will be postponed. For more information on the status of the meeting and Kids Connect visit www.kids-connect.org.

With the success of Kids Create Natick Center, Sayre hopes to have Natick High School students design a new high school.

"Kids do important work and express their creativity in a way useful to town."

Kids Connect now tutors more than 40 students from second grade through high school, according to Deb Sayre, who founded Kids Connect five years ago. "We believe in the kids so much. I watch these kids bloom and get proficient in their subjects and they feel so much better about themselves. It's incredible."

(Kathy Uek can be reached at 508-626-4419 or kuek@cnc.com.)

Holmes: Building a community vision
By Rick Holmes/MetroWest Daily News columnist
Sunday, February 18, 2007

What do you want your town to be like?

For most people, the answer is directly tied to when they moved in. True natives wish their hometowns could be like they were in the good old days, when they were kids. Transplants often feel the town they chose with great care started going downhill as soon as they finished unloading the moving van.

Our towns are constantly changing and there's no freezing them in place - not that some planning boards haven't tried. But most planning boards are too buried in current applications to do much planning.

Besides, it takes more than a planning board to come up with a community vision, especially one that can be translated into concrete steps. That requires a larger conversation, one that builds toward a sustainable consensus.

Volunteers and public officials are engaging in such conversations in many MetroWest cities and towns, but none is as ambitious as Natick 360.

The "360" describes the project's horizon, as does its motto: "Honoring Our Past, Planning Our Future." It will take at least two years to get from defining Natick's identity to endorsing a strategic plan, and the process is well under way.

The process started with gathering facts about Natick today: demographics, economics, commuting patterns, town services. Last October, more than 300 residents - most of them not town government regulars - participated in a weekend "visioning" session, starting with basic questions. What do we like about Natick? What do we value in our town? What kind of future do we aspire to create?

Lots of talk, process, and word-smithing resulted in value and vision statements that aren't exactly loaded with surprises. They value Natick's "small-town" feel, its open spaces, its good schools, its lively downtown, its convenient location, its varied businesses. They want Natick to be a healthy, diverse community, with a range of transportation options, a vibrant economy, accessible natural areas, quality services. Visit natick360.com for the details.

It's all good stuff, and the organizers stopped short of a townwide endorsement of apple pie and the American flag.

The process of translating those ideals into choices is just beginning, and here's where it gets interesting.

Participants, for instance, say they value economic diversity. "Natick is proud not to be one of the W towns," Craig Ross, one of Natick 360's co-chairmen, told a group of "key informants" at a workshop this week. Natick has always had more working-class residents than Weston, Wellesley or Wayland, but it is quickly becoming unaffordable to anyone not earning six figures. The consensus about sustaining diversity will have to be leveraged into a plan for more affordable housing, which is rarely an easy sell.

A consensus is emerging that downtown Natick should be a destination "18 hours a day." But it will take a lot more parking to make that work, and perhaps a further liberalizing of the town's liquor laws. There the future meets the past: After Natick got a reputation as a honky-tonk town back in the 1930s and '40s, it went essentially dry in the '50s. The town loosened up the law a few years back, allowing restaurants to have areas where diners could drink while waiting for their tables, but the only stand-alone bars are private clubs.

Consensus around an ideal makes it possible to seize an opportunity. A case in point is the decision by CSX to officially abandon a rail line between Saxonville and downtown Natick. Turning it into a rail trail is a long, expensive process, but if it was done, it would provide both recreation and transportation benefits. It would link downtown, with its commuter rail station, to the jobs and housing being created at the expanding Natick Mall. Tying that developing neighborhood - the "Nouvelle Natick" upscale condos and a highrise across Speen Street with affordable housing may be just the beginning - to the rest of town is a planning priority.

Every town faces similar issues and choices on housing, schools, natural resources, transportation. Too often each choice is made in a vacuum, pushed by narrow interests instead of a broad vision. Decisions are made by the loudest voices in the meeting, oblivious to the needs and wishes of the residents who were doing something else that night, not to mention the generations of residents yet to arrive in town.

Other communities are engaged in their own visioning and planning processes. I'm involved in a similar effort in my hometown of Upton, where volunteers and town boards have spent years identifying historic, scenic and recreation resources that should be preserved if the town is to survive the next wave of growth with its spirit intact.

A state program, the Heritage Landscape Inventory, is providing grants to help other area communities identify and preserve the places and views residents deem most special.

These long processes can be exhilarating and frustrating, especially when it comes to the specifics required to keep the final product from becoming just another report gathering dust on a town hall shelf. Natick 360 is following a model from an Arizona town that included putting dollar amounts on every recommendation. The message: You won't get your vision without paying for it.

The Natick group is also working at building buy-in from town leaders. Five boards - selectmen, school committee, planning board, conservation commission and finance committee - are sponsoring the effort and being asked to sign off on its work. Town Meeting ponied up $150,000 for the project, with businesses and community groups being asked to contribute $50,000.

The trick is to build enough support for the vision so that the action steps can stand up to the opposition that always arises to something new. A small group of leaders can spend years learning why such-and-such is best for the community's future, only to see it shot down by neighbors attending their first municipal meeting.
But the more people involved in the process, the stronger the community and the less likely its work will be stonewalled or forgotten. As the Natick 360 folks and those involved in similar efforts elsewhere in MetroWest know, the the towns we grew up in are long gone. The future won't wait for us to figure out what our towns should look like.

The time for building a community vision is now.

Rick Holmes is opinion editor of the MetroWest Daily News. He can be reached by e-mail at rholmes@cnc.com.

Input sought on 'Vision for the Future'
By Jennifer Kavanaugh/ Daily News Staff
Tuesday, October 3, 2006

NATICK -- The people who are trying to build a better Natick say the town belongs not just to the officials, civic leaders and the perennial volunteers -- but to anyone who dreams of a better future.

    The town's Strategic Planning Oversight Committee has been managing Natick 360, a multiphase plan to assess the town's present and help determine its future. To that end, the group will host the Vision for the Future Weekend from Oct. 27 to Oct. 29 at Wilson Middle School.

    Organizers hope residents will sign up for one of six two-hour workshops held Saturday, Oct. 28, and on Sunday, to give suggestions for improving the town, or other comments. The weekend will start with a reception, overview presentation and talk on Friday evening.

    "All we're asking is that people spend two hours with us, and help plan Natick for the next 20 years," said David Parish, the committee's co-chairman.

    The Natick 360 project began as a way to figure out how best to serve a growing and changing community, and meet community needs and allot resources. The five-year action plan is scheduled to be completed around the time of Natick's 360th birthday in 2011.

    The project's first stage involved the creation of a report examining Natick's past and present, by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The group is reviewing a draft of that report, Parish said. The Board of Selectmen recently agreed to give $120,000 to Blackerby Associates, an Arizona consulting firm, to conduct the next stages.

    To register for a workshop, or for more information about Natick 360 and the Vision for the Future Weekend, go to www.Natick360.org. Parish said organizers are seeking a diverse range of opinions.

    "That's a major part of this," Parish said. "We're trying to reach out to everybody in town, whether they have been involved in the past or not. We want to get beyond the 200 or 300 people who are consistently engaged in these issues."

    (Jennifer Kavanaugh can be reached at 508-626-4416 or at jkavanau@cnc.com.)