Beginning in 2021, the City’s Zoning Redesign project began it’s focus on village centers. The first phase of community engagement, which took place from the end of May through the beginning of October, 2021, asked community members: What do you envision for your village center(s)? What goal(s) do you want to guide updates to the village centers’ zoning?
Based on what was heard and discovered during that first phase, City staff presented to the Zoning and Planning Committee (ZAP) an overarching ‘framework’ of twelve proposed changes in this memo released on May 27. ZAP workshopped these proposals and reached consensus on further developing and getting community feedback on them. Read here in more detail a summary of the city memo, merged together with ZAP’s opinions and straw votes for each proposal.
The second phase of community engagement is ready to kickoff. From September 1 through October 16th, the City of Newton will collect opinions on the proposed updates to the village center zoning regulations.
The city is still finalizing the material that community members will be able to access beginning September 1st. In the meantime, you can:
- Sign up for the Zoning Redesign newsletter to get notifications
- Review the takeaways from the first phase of engagement and analysis for the village centers’ zoning
- Get connected with a Network member if you have a connection to their community space or develop your own engagement plan to engage your own neighborhood block!
Read here for more information on the City’s rezoning process.