Regional Planning Study

Study 1 | Study 2 | Study 3

The Town of Suffield has been engaged with our neighboring towns in three major regional planning efforts:

The Picture It Better Together Livable Communities Initiative

Bradley Area Transportation Study

The Farmington Valley Biodiversity Project

Livable Communities Initiative

In this project the Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG) worked with three communities: the rural town of Suffield, the suburban town of West Hartford, and the urban Parkville neighborhood of Hartford. The project was funded by the Federal Highway Administration. CRCOG sought to discover what people thought about their own community type as well as other community types and the region as a whole. The goal was to find out where the public's priorities fell on growth-related issues and to provide ways to balance the preservation of cities and towns and farm and forest land with the need to develop and grow. Through a variety of methods, including a visual preference survey and a conventional survey, CRCOG asked the public what are the necessary elements of a livable community. In general, livable communities create a healthy balance of shops, jobs, housing, farmland and open space. In addition, livable communities and livable regions strive to grow in a manner that is economically, environmentally, and socially smart.

Several resources have been developed as a result of the study:

- A 12-minute video entitled Together We Can Grow Better which introduces topics 
    associated with growth and livable communities.
-The Regional Development Issues Survey outlines the results of a statistically valid 
    random sample of residents from Suffield, West Hartford, and Hartford.
-Smart Growth Planning and Zoning Recommendations from the Visual Preference 
    Survey which shows through the use of pictures what citizens' desire by way of 
    development.
-The Tools for Towns Best Practices Manual which covers eight development topics 
    from agricultural preservation to rethinking zoning. For each topic, a quick and 
    easy to read Fact Sheet introduces the tool and a Technical Analysis provides 
    more detail on the "how to's" of the tool..

Each of these resources is available on CRCOG's website, www.crcog.org/publications or by contacting CRCOG at (860) 522-2217.