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Regional planners back aligning state, regional and municipal POCD cycles; implementation questions remain
Summary
RiverCOG and regional planners supported HB 6,994 to shift the State Plan of Conservation and Development to a 10-year cycle and to sequence state, regional, then municipal updates so plans align. Testimony urged staggered timing, additional implementation authority and coordination with decennial census releases.
Frank DeFelice, chair of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Council of Governments (RiverCOG) regional planning commission, told the committee HB 6,994 would align the timing of state, regional and municipal Plans of Conservation and Development (POCDs) on a 10-year cycle and sequence updates so state goals inform regional and local work.
DeFelice said municipal and regional plans already use 10-year cycles and that changing the state plan from a five-year to a 10-year update would reduce preparation costs and improve alignment of goals across levels of government. He and other witnesses acknowledged challenges: civil-data timing tied to the decennial census, the limited supply of planning consultants to draft hundreds of municipal plans at once, and the need for a reasonable multi-year window rather than forcing simultaneous updates across 169 municipalities.
Professional planners and RiverCOG representatives recommended staggered update windows, coordination with the second year of the decennial census, and statutory authority for OPM to extend plan expiration dates to avoid forcing municipalities or COGs to adopt plans out of sequence. Sam Gold (RiverCOG executive director) and John Guskowski (American Planning Association) endorsed the policy’s intent but urged implementation measures to avoid overloading municipal capacity and consultant markets.
Committee members asked about consultant availability and the appropriate cadence. Testimony proposed simple statutory fixes such as changing a single statutory number from 5 to 10 and adding transitional provisions to give local governments and regional councils time to sequence updates.
No formal committee vote was taken during the hearing.
