“We, the People of Standish, Maine, recognize that our community is a treasure of open spaces and natural beauty....”

So begins the “2016 Vision for the Town of Standish,” born on a cold night in January 2004, when more than 50 people convened in the Town Council Chambers to create a new vision for the future of their town. Citizens produced a Vision Statement and a new Comprehensive Plan by 2006, which call for revitalization of the town center of Standish Corner, new business growth and conservation of Standish’s open space and rural character. But realizing that vision has turned out to be harder than anyone thought. 

The Vision and Comprehensive Plan reflect both hopes for the future and the harsh realities of the past. Land use planning in Standish, Maine had been alive and well for decades before that January meeting, but if you toured the village centers and back roads of this largely rural town you wouldn’t necessarily know it. The Town developed a 1992 Comprehensive Plan and zoning policies that directed new growth into established village centers, but today rural roads and wilderness areas are lined with new subdivisions while the villages languish. 73 percent of new development between 1999 and 2004 occurred in designated Rural Areas, while only 27 percent occurred in Growth Areas.

By 2004, citizens realized that traditional planning techniques and documents weren’t enough to keep Standish from becoming a sprawling suburb of Portland. As they looked for ways to move from vision to action, the non-profit organization GrowSmart Maine (GSM) and communities across the State were struggling with the same questions: What would it take to develop actionable, citizen-inspired growth management plans? What innovative planning tools and processes might help turn a vision into reality? What can communities across Maine learn from each other’s successes and mistakes?

GrowSmart Maine and a variety of other partners came together to create the Maine Model Town project, which attempts to answer many of those questions by experimenting with new planning processes and tools in a single “model” community. The project will leave the Town of Standish with new, actionable, citizen-inspired plans for Standish Corner and town-wide Open Space and it will leave GrowSmart Maine with a host of lessons and demonstrated approaches that rural communities across the State can put to use.

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