Following a public hearing lasting about 15 minutes on Tuesday, the Jaffrey Planning Board adopted a new chapter of the town’s master plan focusing on energy and updated the chapter on economic development.
Although there were a few residents in the audience, many were members of the public who worked on committees that gathered information for the plan updates, and there were few comments offering feedback.
The master plan is not a regulatory document, but does serve as a guidepost for the public vision of the town, and is used as a guide for planning and zoning officials when making regulatory decisions.
The energy chapter is a new chapter adopted following a mandate passed at the 2020 Town Meeting directing the town to create and include a sustainability chapter within the next two years. The chapter includes several key takeaways, including identifying the town’s water treatment plant and highway garage as high-energy consumers that might be targets for energy improvements.
Planning Board member Margaret Dillon noted that a key point to the chapter was acknowledging that the town may have to adapt to changing circumstances, including energy and efficiency and community resilience, including adopting policies which secure local food sources, manage development pressures and mitigate risks of flooding, drought or fire.
“One of the most important statements is acknowledging that there’s a climate crisis, and that we’re going to be needing to mitigate and adapt,” Dillon said. “The hope was, I think, to get a framework – at least admitting that there’s a problem and that we’re going to be addressing it in certain ways. As time goes on, and we become more aware, and awareness grows for more and more people, I think those opportunities will be there and we can capture them. But we needed something, in my opinion, to acknowledge these are issues that we’re going to be dealing with.”
The economic development chapter was also updated with more-current information, including recent community surveys. The chapter has not been updated since 2007.
With no community input that resulted in further discussion or amendments to the proposed updates, the Planning Board adopted the new chapters in a unanimous vote.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.