It's better to plan when a town is NOT experiencing development pressures to have time to collect and use data to inform decisions. The Town of Sandwich stands as a model of forward planning, implementing smart growth principles.

Sandwich developed a 30 year build-out scenario for each selected area of town (strategic planning area or SPA) where it wanted to grow. It also identified areas where it did not want to grow - such as farmlands and other critical environmental lands. HERE are two of the four strategic planning areas it identified. Each strategic planning area build-out analysis inventories existing buildings, land and building values, traffic, parking, water and sewer demands, and then estimates potential total new residential, commercial and light industrial square footage, and new dwelling units. This analysis was done in 2009 as part of its local comprehensive planning.  The town also developed its own fiscal impact analysis model to accompany the build-out scenarios in each strategic planning area.

Arguably, Pepperell created a strategic planning area identified as a Town Center Base Zone under the 40R proposal, replacing an earlier Town Center Mixed Use Overlay District. After 40R was defeated, the town swung back to a Town Center Overlay District currently in draft stage. This proposed overlay district returns to the high-density (12-20 units per acre) by-right zoning rejected by the town under 40R.

A build-out scenario was developed by NMCOG for the 40R Town Center Base Zone. It was for 821 units and contained no fiscal impact analyses and lacked critical information about transportation, parking, town infrastructure assessment, stormwater management, and the existence of the heat island in the downtown area. 

Build-out analyses are essential to understanding where we are going when we think about growth - and when we want to get there. In the Sandwich example, implicit in a 30 year time horizon is the idea of phased growth to allow the town and taxpayers the opportunity to absorb costs associated with the build-outs.