(Parsing Older, Aging, Retiring, Staying-in-Place, Stages-of-Life)
An Ashland resident brought a draft copy of the 1988 Comprehensive Plan Executive Summary to a recent Town Manager Coffee Hour at the Community Center, The Summary includes a list of “several problems facing us today and in the future” including: 1) a lack of housing that is affordable, 2) a division will continue between Route 126 and the rest of town, 3) that traffic congestion will worsen.
Sound familiar? This was written 36 years ago. Ashland has changed dramatically during the past 36 years, but apparently it seems, not much has changed, at least in terms of reports and plans.
I am a member of the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee. I represent the Ashland Council on Aging. I want this process to be successful. And want the process, and the final document, to represent our entire community. But there seems to be a general lack of enthusiasm and energy with the work. Maybe it’s just me. I don’t know, but possibly other Committee members are feeling and thinking the same.
I don’t think a comp plan is an easy process. To my knowledge, there have been (2) other attempts to update Ashland’s Comprehensive Plan, one successful and one not. It requires involvement and coordination from many constituencies and a broad cross-section of community demographic. There is a tension, natural or otherwise, between “Old Ashland”, those older longtime residents resistant to change, and , for lack of a better term, “New Growth “ residents, represented by ethnic, cultural and religious diversity.
At the most recent Steering Committee meeting, an extraordinary amount of discussion and Committee time was dominated by a few members parsing words. This is a large group, and typical of many boards and committees, there are egos and personal agendas involved. But when the Committee spends 45 minutes parsing aging, retiring, aging-in-place, stage-of-life, etc, it starts to feel like a rabbit hole, and we have been hijacked. Hijacked by parsing and nitpicking. Tedious and frustrating. Eyes glazed over. A necessary evil ? Another example pf tyranny by a minority?
A quote from the 1988 Comp Plan Summary reads, “Granted, development and change will occur, but only by acting now, on a variety of fronts, can the town guide this development process and ensure that Ashland will continue to be a good place to live in the next century.” I don’t know the makeup of the 1988 Comp Plan committee, but 36 years later, how far have we progressed? And how much progress will be made if the 2024 version continues a joyless process of nitpicking and parsing?
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