Comp Plan Committee looks at outreach

The Norwood Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee (NCPSC) met last week at the Norwood Senior Center with residents and Board members and discussed the group’s current outreach results and plan.

The good news is that, according to Consultant JM Goldson Founder Jenn Goldson, the process has resulted in more than 2,000 participation points from residents. A participation point is any interaction a resident has had with the planning process and, therefore, means that one resident can have multiple points. But she said this is a really good number for this far into the process and she has seen some municipalities with orders of magnitude fewer points this far into the plan.

“All told the committee has collected 2,308 participation points, which is fantastic, and we want to keep going,” she said. “Especially, after the pandemic, I think there is just apathy in general in the country; it’s not Norwood specifically, but what we’re finding is that in a lot of our client communities, the committee, the staff, and our team worked really hard, and yet some communities are only getting 200 people to participate in a two-year planning study. So you guys have done an amazing job getting 2,308 points so far.”

Town Planner Sarah Dixon said they are looking to extend the outreach process, and asked any resident willing to take a survey to go to https://tinyurl.com/yf8jc5tu and take the survey, which ends on Jan. 15.

Goldson also said Norwood is hosting an Open House on Jan. 12 at 7 p.m. at the Morrill Memorial Library, and Committee members emphatically invited the public to attend.

Goldson said they have had working sessions, meetings in a box, several surveys, “flyering” sessions at the train stations, road shows, open houses and more to get results. For instance, she said another 500 points were generated by the most recent survey, which is a really good result. She said that a recent flyering event at the Norwood Train Station had a lot of interest and resulted in about one-third of those who took a flyer going online and taking the survey.

“A staff member of mine last week went out on Thursday – she picked the warmest day – to both train stations during the commuter hour, and that gave an uptick in the survey that’s out now,” she said. “There was a flyer that went out in the electric bills as well. And then we also sent a flyer to all Town Meeting members.”

Goldson said they want to look for more ways to connect with people, which is probably not a bad idea, as several meeting attendees said they hadn’t heard of the near two-year-long process that’s been going on.

“When the flyer came in with the bill, that’s the first time I heard about this,” said one resident. “I’ve never seen a survey, I’ve never heard of anyone canvasing or anything, and I feel like I don’t know enough.”

One resident asked for an Open House more in the afternoon, and Goldson said that would be doable, but Community Development Director Sarah Dixon said they would wait until after the Jan. 12 meeting to see where the numbers are at and go from there.

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Another resident asked about posting on Norwood Now, the Facebook group with the most members that requires most posts to be specifically about the Town. Assistant Director of Community Development Ilex Jones said that currently, the administrator of Norwood Now does not allow posts regarding the Comprehensive Plan to be posted. Goldson asked that residents not affiliated with the Town Government or the plan to post the survey to Norwood Now and similar social media outlets to continue to spread the word.

“I wonder if just a resident of the community who’s on the site already would be able to post about the survey – I know the Town’s not allowed to post, but you could certainly help us out if you were willing to,” she said.

For all related information about the Comprehensive Plan, go to https://tinyurl.com/yf8jc5tu

For a printable/shareable copy of the plan survey flyer, go to https://tinyurl.com/5ye65yhw