Sewers and Smart Growth

Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative Releases
Sewers and Smart Growth:Challenges, Opportunities, and Strategies Report

Many communities are studying whether they need to install sewers to reduce the amount of nutrients entering their estuaries and address other local needs. With the upcoming release of a new County report, towns now will have additional tools and information to assess how the installation of sewers may help to achieve other community growth management goals.

The report, entitled Sewers and Smart Growth: Challenges, Opportunities and Strategies is a project of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative. The report was developed by Ridley & Associates, Inc. through a grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust. GIS mapping assistance was provided by the Cape Cod Commission.

“Sewers have the potential to change the development equation,” said Augusta McKusick, Chair of the Collaborative’s Governing Board. “Our goal for this project was to frame the issues and provide a range of tools towns can choose from as they consider how sewers may fit into their community,” Mrs. McKusick said.

The report was developed over the past eighteen months by consultants and a work group of local and County officials from across the Cape. A survey of local officials also was used to gear the report’s analysis toward priority issues for the towns.The report describes a series of possible ways sewers could influence growth in local communities, and shows how prevalent those scenarios are on Cape Cod. The report also presents a range of land use, sewer, health and conservation regulatory tools available to ensure that sewers reinforce a community’s goals for resources protection and for town centers, affordable housing and other aspects of compact development referred to as smart growth. Case studies are used to demonstrate how the tools are being addressed under actual planning in Cape Cod towns.

“With this report the Collaborative has taken an important step in bridging our understanding of how sewers relate to land use and resource protection potential in Cape Cod towns,” said Susan Rask, Environmental Health Specialist for the County who served as Project Manager. “There is something of value for all towns in this report regardless of how extensive sewering is likely to be,” Ms. Rask said.

Read Full Report: Sewers and Smart Growth: Challenges, Opportunities, and Strategies