Growth & Conservation Framework

City officials understand that purposeful, proactive planning for future growth and development will keep Manchester on pace to be a regional and national leader in innovation.

Right-sizing Manchester for a successful future requires a careful balance between supporting growth and promoting conservation. It demands a diversified development strategy. It must be respectful of Manchester’s identity and heritage and, at the same time, opportunistic, facilitating change that reinforces the community’s vision for the future.

This section of the Master Plan describes the City’s Growth & Conservation Framework, which is intended to guide growth by informing decisions about infrastructure investments, development and redevelopment activities, and initiatives to protect natural and cultural resources. Managing change in accordance with the framework will help ensure a higher quality of life for current and future residents, a more diversified local economy, and fiscal sustainability.

The Growth & Conservation Framework provides a means to quickly organize and illustrate a hierarchy of growth and conservation priorities for City officials to start implementing immediately. The Growth & Conservation Map (see page 210), often referred to as a Future Land Use Map, depicts the framework’s geographic application. Areas to Preserve, Enhance, Transform, and Strengthen, called Sectors, generally represent areas distinguished by their respective level of development or redevelopment opportunity, and the type of intervention required to effect change and realize the potential future built character the community desires.

Commitment to the City’s Growth & Conservation Framework will (1) bring public and private decisionmaking processes closer together, (2) help leverage City resources with other public and private investment dollars, (3) manage the amount and timing of new infrastructure required to support future development and redevelopment, (4) implement a city-wide strategy for identifying and securing open space for future conservation, (5) establish mechanisms for protecting the City’s cultural assets, and (6) increase the City’s influence in future development decisions that directly impact the quality of life for everyone living and working in the area.

Through input gathered from participants throughout the public input process, City officials and staff, combined with results from GIS technical analysis, and a Return on Investment (ROI) analysis, were used to create the Growth and Conservation Framework. This framework will be used as the organizing structure for the Master Plan and future decision making priorities.

Preservation Sectors include both permanently protected and recreation open space. In contrast, Growth Sectors include the specific areas of the City that either is already or are desired to be, built as vibrant, walkable neighborhoods and districts, keeping with the character that has made Manchester a desirable city for more than 150 years. Large areas of existing single family residential areas outside the City’s core are intended to remain unchanged.

By organizing the City according to Growth and Preservation Sectors, intentional and informed decisions can be made about how to most efficiently spend municipal dollars on infrastructure improvements that will support the vision. In this way, future land use demand in the growth areas can be synced with planned infrastructure.