Planning and Technical Assistance

MARPA supports a wide range of planning activities that are being conducted by its member organizations, advocates for the planning profession’s latest innovations, ‘hot topics’, and gathers planning professionals together for networking, learning, and other professional activities.

A prime example of MARPA’s support for planning is its sponsorship of the Commonwealth’s Citizen Planner Training Collaborative (CPTC).  CPTC provides local Massachusetts planning and zoning officials with tools to make effective decisions regarding their community’s current and future land use, such as:

• Training workshops delivering a Level I and Level 2 core curriculum, taught across the state by expert attorneys and professional planners;
• Internet access to core training units, a bylaw collection, many planning related links, and training calendars;
• On Demand Training by request to any community wishing to focus on a specific topic, and
• Annual Conference addressing important land use issues on a more in-depth basis.

Find out more about CTPC by visiting http://masscptc.org

MARPA also supports planning through legislative advocacy.  For many years, MARPA has worked collaboratively with the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) in this area to:

• Institute zoning reform
• Establish and sustain funding for the Commonwealth’s District Local Technical Assistance (DLTA) Program
• Sustain the Commonwealth’s Chapter 90 Program

See the Legislative Advocacy section of this website for additional information on MARPA’s planning efforts.

MARPA also represents Massachusetts’ planning interests nationally with organizations such as the American Planning Association.