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Planning board reviews five vision options for Nantucket master plan, schedules public review
Summary
Planning board members heard a consultant presentation summarizing public input for a 20-year master plan vision, debated whether the statement should be short and aspirational or longer with policy direction, and asked consultants to revise a draft for further review and public hearing this summer.
Dylan Sussman, a consultant with Dodson and Flinker, told the Nantucket Planning Board that the draft vision statements for the town's master plan were based on extensive public input, including interviews, a 1,600-plus respondent community survey, 11 “kitchen table” conversations, and two April visioning workshops that included students and residents.
The vision statement, Sussman said, is intended to be a 20-year aspirational statement that links community values to goals and policies: “a brief statement that is intended to be aspirational for the community while also being realistic,” he said, adding that the master plan will use the vision to guide future goals and actions.
Board members and the consultants discussed five alternative vision drafts that ranged from a one-sentence statement to longer, policy-oriented options. Hillary Mayport, a Planning Board member, said she preferred a longer draft because transparency and specificity matter to residents who participated in the outreach and “we owe it to our community in a vision statement to be really specific about what we mean.” John Kitchner, another board member, said he favored a version that emphasized resilience and detail to aid later implementation.
Several members said they liked elements from multiple drafts: shorter statements are easier to read and remember, they said, while longer versions can provide clearer policy direction. Steven Welch and Abby De Molina said they wanted something that was both concise and actionable — short enough to be read quickly but linked to more detailed goals and implementation steps in the plan's chapters.
Consultant Judy Barrett, identified as the project lead, told the board that draft inventory chapters (most but not all) had been circulated to town departments and that housing and public-services chapters were still being finalized. Barrett said the consultants will use the board's feedback to revise the vision statement and the outreach plan.
Public commenters urged broader and more diverse outreach. Maureen Phillips of Madaket said “affordable year‑round housing and coastal resiliency” should be the master plan’s top priorities. Several speakers asked for targeted outreach to demographics that have been underrepresented in past efforts, and for translations of materials into other languages to increase participation.
Board members and consultants agreed on next steps: consultants will prepare a revised vision reflecting the board's preferences (a concise statement that retains clear policy direction and measurable goals), the board will discuss the revision at a July 14 meeting, and the consultants tentatively proposed a public hearing in August. Sussman also proposed an interim Planning Board review on June 23 to provide earlier feedback on a revised draft.
Why it matters: The master plan frames land-use and public-investment choices on housing, coastal resilience, transportation and growth management. Board members repeatedly said they want a vision statement that both reflects what people said in outreach and points to concrete implementation steps in the plan's chapters.
The Planning Board asked the consultants to produce a revised draft that the board will review at upcoming meetings and open to public comment before the board adopts a final vision statement.
