A Tough Message For Nantucket

To the editor: Last month, Nantucket’s Planning and Land Use (PLUS) department and consultant Barrett Planning Group kicked off the “Master Plan Visioning” program with a community meeting and reception at the Nantucket Inn. PLUS had invited Charles Marohn Jr., founder of the non-profit Strong Towns, to be the keynote speaker. Marohn is an engineer, a land use planner, and a best-selling author who consults nationwide on building sustainable, healthy small towns. He’s known for his provocative opposition to conventional suburban development patterns. Given how our island has developed since the last Master Plan was updated 16 years ago, Marohn was an unexpected choice for PLUS and a compelling way to kick-off planning for Nantucket’s next ten years.

The room was packed with community leaders, Town staff, and high-information voters. As Marohn talked, people shifted uncomfortably in their seats. He shared cautionary tales and connected them to missed opportunities and mistakes. By the end, no one could avoid reading between the lines: Marohn was critical. It was a tough talk, but one PLUS and Barrett Planning Group thought worth hearing. Here are three key take-aways from the keynote:

1. Poor community planning can spiral into fiscal insolvency. Marohn shared a series of charts showing how suburban sprawl has bankrupted America’s small towns, because the cost of servicing suburban areas outpaces revenue. What is the cost of Nantucket’s sprawling pattern of growth? Nantucket faces sewer upgrades, coastal road relocation, solid waste expansion, school improvement, and, of course, funding the “missing middle” housing necessary for working people, without whom we don’t have a community or an economy. Takeaway: as we consider our next ten years, we must plan a sustainable island.

2. Modernize zoning code for better design. After pointing out ways our zoning is begetting fiscally irresponsible suburban sprawl, Marohn moved on to the Richmond subdivision on Old South Road, which he clearly found regrettable. Marohn opined that except for the cedar shingle siding, these dull buildings on cookie-cutter lots could be anywhere. How did this happen? One root cause is that the HDC cannot deny an application simply because the building is “too boring.” Marohn recommended form-based zoning code, which planners in Seaside, Florida (and in Massachusetts) use to guide building design. It includes enough range to allow for individuality while also preserving design unity. If you compare form-based code to what Nantucket is supposed to be achieving with its 35-year-old design guidelines, Building with Nantucket in Mind (BWNIM), you’ll see many similarities. Yet the HDC struggles with lengthy design reviews and nonetheless frequently ends up far from BWNIM. Architects appreciate form-based code because it clarifies what will be approved and what won’t, saving home builders and towns time and money. Both the Wiggles Way housing project and the new seasonal housing on Waitt Drive cited HDC-driven change orders as adding to costly overruns. Takeaway: investing in a well thought-out form-based code for new construction has the potential to assist the HDC, builders, and town staff while reducing cost and elevating the baseline quality of design.

3. Keep it small. Start where people are struggling the most. Nantucket loves ambitious projects. Town departments lined up $275 million of capital projects for FY 2026 alone and the Capital Committee recommended funding $166 million of them. But Marohn urged Nantucket to steer clear of mega-projects whenever possible, calling them rife with pitfalls. A Strong Towns axiom is “do the next smallest thing.” This means: find the smallest, most manageable action you can take right now to improve the situation, and then do it, and do it again, and again, so you gradually build a stronger community. But Marohn also emphasized morality: the purpose of planning is to create a beautiful and healthy community for all. Nantucket can’t avoid every expensive project, and we have a robust tax base. But money, staff-time, and public goodwill have limits. Takeaway: even with a large federal grant, we must ask whether it’s wise or ethical to spend significant staff time and $6.9 million on a roundabout at Nobadeer Farm Road (or other fill in the blank project), when less complex options are available, and we are falling short of meeting fundamental community needs.

In the weeks since Marohn’s talk, I’ve heard some powerful people criticize Marohn for dwelling too long on fluffy analogies, giving a canned speech, and simply not “getting” Nantucket. But Nantucket can learn from Marohn’s ideas, if it could be open to them. Most importantly, when it comes to the 2025 – 2035 Master Plan, let’s keep the community in community planning.

Hillary Hedges Rayport

Ms. Rayport is the former chair of the Nantucket Historical Commission and the lead sponsor of Massachusetts Bill S.21, an Act to Amend the NP&EDC.