Downtown Athol Design Guidelines Project Survey

Posted on: April 2, 2024 - 7:37pm

Downtown Athol Design Guidelines Project Survey 

We want your input! Downtown Athol Design Guidelines Input is Welcome!  

On Tuesday, March 12, 2024, the Athol Downtown Vitality Committee (DVC) hosted a Public Workshop for our Downtown Design Guidelines Project.     Though we promoted this event ahead of time, attendance was limited to mostly DVC members, Town Planning Staff, and local media.   A PDF of the Presentation document is available here: https://www.athol-ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif2741/f/uploads/20240312_workshop-presentation.pdf  

A Memo summarizing the Public Workshop and of the input received is available here: https://www.athol-ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif2741/f/uploads/20240312_-_athol_workshop_1_-_input_memo.pdf  

Before continuing with the development of a draft set of Design Guidelines, we do welcome additional input from the Community and have put together an online survey tool for folks to provide the same input that was asked for at the meeting. 

Here is the Online Survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/AtholDesign   - the survey will be open through Monday, April 22, 2024. 

A link to review and download any of the Workshop exercise materials, including “Rate Main Street”, “Rate a Storefront”, the “Design your own Storefront” templates, and set of workshop close-out questions can be found here: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1uWTo1MU7hhynxs12iS5gzK0Jhb2u_xSb  

Besides submittal of the online survey responses, we welcome hard copies of the hard copy submission items also by Monday, April 22. They can be scanned in and email to esmith@townofathol.org, returned in person to Athol Town Hall (either outside drop box or inside in Room #29), or sent via U.S. Mail to attention of Eric R. Smith, Planning Director, 584 Main Street, Athol, MA 01331. 

The Town of Athol received grant funding from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Downtown Initiative (MDI) Program to help update Design Guidelines for Downtown Athol.  The last set of guidelines date from 1997.   Work on the Downtown Design Guidelines update is facilitated by a consultant, Innes Associates, Ltd, in support of the Athol Downtown Vitality Committee and the Athol Planning and Development Department. Additional Project Information will be posted on the Planning Department website.