Community Plans

Community Plans set long-term goals and guide decision- making. The most widely used plans impacting housing are Comprehensive Plans and Housing Production Plans (HPP).

Depending on their capacity, municipalities can working with a technical assistance provider or other project partner to develop a Master Plan or HPP. For Mass in Motion Coordinators, your technical assistance providers are a great place to start.

Because these documents establish a vision for the future, they can be a very powerful tool in shaping the health of a community.

• A Comprehensive Plan can chart a path amidst changing social, economic and environmental conditions (e.g. increases in senior citizen populations with lower rates of automobile use), and can promote healthy housing strategies such as the production of a variety of housing types and sizes.

• A Housing Production Plan (HPP) is a five-year plan to meet existing and projected housing need and demand. HPP analyze housing need and demand in a community, considers housing development capacity and opportunities, examines the share of housing that is affordable, and establishes housing goals and strategies.

If your community is working on a community plan:

• Ensure representation on steering or advisory committee including those that can speak to public health, as well as low-income, BIPOC, older adults and people with disabilities.

• Identify and introduce public health research on community health insights that capture the health and transportation connection.

• Secure agreement for explicit reference to transportation as a determinant of health.

• Provide opportunities for community engagement, making sure to include people of all ages, abilities, and ethnicities.

• Have a clear action plan for implementing identified strategies and build coalitions to advance implementation.