• What growth patterns does current zoning dictate?
• What long-term impacts does that growth create such as: traffic, water quality and quantity, and education?
• What is the maximum potential growth possible under existing zoning?
• What are likely impacts on municipal services from that growth?
• Is there an alternative, more favorable future and what would that look like?
• What can be done now to enhance the pattern of new development?

To help communities consider and address questions such as these, EOEA sponsored the creation of a set of buildout maps and analyses for all 351 cities and towns within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The maps and analyses depict currently developed and protected land within a community and what a community would look like if remaining undeveloped land was completely developed in accordance with local zoning.

Map 1 portrays built and constrained land

Given the home rule nature of Massachusetts land use governance, EOEA thought it was critical to provide all 351 cities and towns this useful tool to explore growth and development planning. Every community from Boston to Mount Washington has an interest in its future and is part of the picture of growth statewide. The buildout project allows every community to see its current and potential future development, and determine whether or not it is near buildout or growth pressures are scarce. Another intent of the project is to inspire communities to work together across borders to address issues such as shared water supplies that pay no attention to political borders.

A buildout consists of a series of 4-5 GIS maps that visually show a community its development patterns and future growth projections based upon existing local zoning. The maps act as storyboards that unfold a picture of land use decisions the community has made to date and what these decisions may mean for the community in the future. These buildout maps project the default scenario for growth by graphically illustrating what the community may look like if all remaining developable lands were developed, to their maximum potential, based on existing zoning. Thus, the buildout provides a good basis for decisions about future development and potential impacts on the community.

Map 2 portrays developable lands colored by zoning

EOEA contracted with Massachusetts' 13 regional planning agencies to utilize a common methodology to develop buildouts for communities within their jurisdiction. A standard protocol was followed which involved meetings with local officials to acquire current information, confirm assumptions and customize this standard methodology to reflect the details of each individual community's unique zoning regulations. In fact, some communities that are closer to buildout chose to conduct redevelopment analyses in areas of underutilized sites where new development might be seen as an improvement to the community.

Map 3 portrays developable and developed lands in two colors

Understanding that planning decisions are not just for a select number of planning professionals or local officials, EOEA presented these buildout projects to the public in a variety of venues.

• As the projects were completed, EOEA staff presented buildout analyses to the City Council and Board of Selectmen in every community in the form of a customized slide presentation.
• EOEA held 20 Summits across the state to introduce larger forums of 100 plus attendees from 12-15 communities, to generate discussion about the buildouts and explore the community characteristics that people wished to preserve and change.
• EOEA held 5 regional SuperSummits of up to 300 people from up to 52 communities to explore buildout implications across municipal borders. For these events EOEA's MassGIS team integrated completed buildout projects into a single uniform palette to enable regional analysis of buildout impacts.

Builtout Summit held in Melrose, MA on March 3, 2000

NOTE: The Regional Resource Pages and Create your own Regional Buildout Analysis pages are currently offline.

For more information on the buildout map and analysis project please read our full length publication, The Buildout Book: Where Do You Want to be at Buildout?, available to either read or print from the web. Additionally, each community's buildout map series and analysis are also available in both PDF and ArcView format.