Elsa Pinkerton and Melina Cessna scribbled down their thoughts about the pressures and opportunities for Concord’s next master plan. Their sticky notes joined a colorful collage of other thoughts residents had for the vision of the city’s future.
Pinkerton, 49, and Cessna, 31, said housing was one of their top issues. Cessna owns a fixer-upper home with her husband and Pinkerton rents. Funding the city’s library, equitably maintaining the local parks and helping the unhoused population were also important issues between them.
They, along with dozens of other Concord residents, gave their input on the city’s 2050 Master Plan during an open house on Saturday, where conversations around housing, transportation and attracting young people dominated the session.
“It’s important to be a voice in our community,” Pinkerton said. “This is where we live. This is where we work. This is where our family and friends are. And Concord’s a really special place, and I want to see it grow with the population.”
Master plans hone a city’s vision for growth and development for the next 10 to 20 years, including how and where growth should be focused, guiding ideas on where to invest in infrastructure like roads and sidewalks and what rules might deliver those results.
The city chose Boston-based Utile to lead the charge on developing the master plan. Representatives from the planning firm gave a brief overview of the meaning of a master plan and what key issues stood out most. Afterwards, residents traveled from board to board to further understand topics like infrastructure, workforce development and natural resources, as well as give their thoughts on such topics.
Transportation has been top of mind for Gerard Bedard as an avid biker whose lived in Concord for 25 years. The 65-year-old liked the expansion of the Northern Rail Trail and Greenway Trail, but would like to see less congestion on the roads and more public transit and walkability around the city, similar to European cities.
“They’re moving in the right direction, but it’s slow,” he said. “So I would like to see more effort on just calming and slowing the traffic down.”
The process to develop the master plan is expected to take about 18 months, with public feedback largely shaping the final product. Residents were encouraged to apply for the Master Plan Advisory Subcommittee which will be used to fine tune content before bringing it to the public.
A community survey will be sent out this fall, according to a presentation to the planning board. Neighborhood meetings — one each for East Concord, Downtown and the West End, the Heights, Penacook Village, the South End and West Concord — will be held early in 2027.
Zoë Mueller, senior urban planner with Utile, said the company is only a part of the development stages of the plan, and Concord leaders are tasked with implementing those visions with the help of a strategy laid out in the plan.
“We’ll end up identifying a couple things that are early actions or high priorities that might be the city’s focus, but it’s often a pretty long list, and so it really takes a big cross section of people getting motivated to be involved in that implementation,” she said.
Concord’s planning board will have final say over the finished product, expected to be ready for approval by mid-2028. Dina Condodemetraky joined the planning board two years ago and heard a lot of conservation about housing and renewable energy on Tuesday. For her, she would like to see an expansion of the Commuter Rail to the area. For her 18-year-old son, Jason, he’d like to see a gathering place, like a mall, to be brought back to the city.
Condodemetraky said she is excited to see how the final product will come together with the vast array of ideas from the community.
“For every single person that’s in this room, there’s a different opinion, there’s a different point of view, and the idea of kind of hopefully finding a common ground for everybody who kind of agrees, looking forward to seeing if that can happen,” she said.
Mueller said, thoughout the communities they’ve worked with across New England, not enough young people are at the table and would encourage them to participate in the process. Concerns surrounding attraction of young people to the city buzzed around the open house.
Chris Catalan, 30, moved to Concord from Delaware five years ago and has met more young people in the area as he’s gotten more involved in the community, but still feels there’s a lack of age diversity.
“I’m just curious to see what the city has planned to maybe retain, bring in, encourage more young individuals to be here,” he said. “I know New Hampshire is like is an aging state … so to have places that young people feel like they can just enjoy would be nice.”
Visit https://www.concordnh.gov/2114/Master-Plan-Update to get up-to-date information about the master plan process and ways to be involved in the process.
