The West Ward Neighborhood Plan for Easton, PA is an excellent example of a foundational plan for a wide range of planning initiatives. This plan focuses on a diverse and dynamic neighborhood directly west of Easton’s downtown area. With this plan, the community banded together to create a plan that was inclusive and comprehensive, with layers of analysis that looked at both broad issues and specific locations.
After identifying overall guiding principles, such as equal opportunity and economic prosperity, the West Ward Neighborhood Plan zeroes in on specific locations, like the Cottingham Stadium focus area and the regional gateway area, and makes specific recommendations for these places with illustrations of potential development scenarios. The recommendations are clear-cut and include both quick and easy actions and longer term, more challenging ones. One interesting element of the plan is a notation on the complexity of different recommendations, which is a helpful way of quickly understanding how difficult the recommendation might be to implement. View the plan here.
While the plan was being developed, the community began to implement some of the recommendations, and this plan has not been sitting on a shelf since then. The West Ward Community Initiative is continuing wholeheartedly, and you can read more about their efforts here.
