“Exeter 2044” Exeter’s Plan for The Next 20 Years
This past May, the town council started to make their plans for the future of the small town of Exeter. Their goal is to make a general plan on how to both preserve and improve different aspects of the community for the years to come.
Required by the state, each town in Rhode Island must renew a comprehensive plan every 20 years for long-term planning of the town. A plan such as this factors in how living will be different 20 years from now, and what the officials in any given town must do to preserve residents’ interests and values in what they want for their town, while improving with changing times. The state also requires it to include a plan of how the discussed improvements will be in place. As William DePasquale, of the town planning department, stated, “The last section of this is an implementation program because what happened in the past was these plans would just sit on a shelf and get dusty, so this section says you have to say who is going to do this, when is it going to be done, what is the funding, so the state requires you to have all of these goals for execution.” The town of Exeter is currently in the stages of preparing this plan that will be in place from now to the year 2044.
“If you want your town not to change in a bad way, or a different way, then you have to get involved in comprehensive planning.”
William DePasquale, Exeter Town Planning Department
For Exeter’s plan, they are using recent town surveys, demographic information, and the voices of the town council. There are many things that have to be taken into account when creating a plan such as this. According to DePasquale, they are considering improvements and/or preservation in the following areas: available housing, how land is being used and for what purposes, natural resources, available outdoor space and outdoor recreation, historical sites, services and facilities, transportation opportunities, town preparedness for natural disasters, and potential economic development.
“I think the number one challenge by far is building consensus.”
William DePasquale, Exeter Town Planning Department
To get an idea of people’s general thoughts about the town, Exeter put out a survey to gain an idea of what residents wanted to preserve and things that they thought needed improvement. As DePasquale stated, “I think the number one challenge by far is building consensus.”
This lack of consensus can be seen in this survey. Many residents commented that they enjoy the rural atmosphere of Exeter, and want it to remain the same. Exeter residents have relatively high income levels, causing a limited amount of diversity in the community, as there isn’t currently a variety of housing for lower-income families. While some residents want to keep the building of new infrastructure to a minimum to preserve the rural charm, others want to create new housing to provide affordable and a variety of housing to new residents, along with the elderly.
DePasquale commented on the importance of finding a balance between the two extremes, “We want to build consensus on things to keep Exeter rural and to keep taxes low. In order to keep taxes low, you need economic development… [and] some of the economic development you want doesn’t make it rural anymore. So, what you got to do is say ok, we agree we want it rural, we agree we need more economic development, how about if economic development is done in a way that is still rural. So, we look at agricultural economic development.”
Currently, this plan is still in the formative stages, and will be implemented in early 2024. The Exeter 2044 plan looks to the future of our town to continue to keep its good characteristics, and improve the negative characteristics. Along with the future come new generations that will be the residents and leaders of this community. DePasquale commented on the importance of these new generations, including students in our school district, to get involved in their community and futures: “This plan is about really how the young folks can get involved in this plan because it’s going to be their Exeter.”
Students and community members who want to get involved can learn more at www.exeter2044.com.
With the Exeter 2044 plan be a current and ongoing project, DePasquale wanted to express some final sentiments to the people in the community about getting involved with the plan, “If you want your town not to change in a bad way, or in a different way, then you have to get involved in comprehensive planning. If you don’t…then it’s just going to go with the whim of the day, whatever the whim of the day is, that’s what you’re going to get, and all of your investment and desire to live in a community could be gone in 16 years, and it could be transformed into something totally different.”