A group of students at the University of Connecticut is working with the Town of Mansfield to collect input from the community to update the town’s plan of conservation and development.
According to Jennifer Kaufman, Mansfield’s director of planning and development, each town in Connecticut is required to update the plan every 10 years. This year, Mansfield is conducting a survey to better understand factors such as land use changes, zoning changes, community services, human services, library services and public safety.
“Every 10 years, every town in Connecticut is required to do a plan of conservation and development by state statute[…],” Kaufman explained in an interview with The Daily Campus. “We did a very large update to our plan of conservation and development back in 2015 so this, this time, is really meant to be an update, not a full rewrite.”
UConn’s innovation house learning community has been tasked with surveying UConn students, faculty and staff for this year’s update. According to Kathy Rocha, the course instructor and director of the Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, UConn makes up roughly 60% of the total Mansfield population, and the town hopes to get more input from the UConn community this year.
“What we’re trying to do is help [the Town of Mansfield] to get their survey out and about to UConn, so that UConn can have a say in the survey itself,” Rocha said in an interview with The Daily Campus. “They’ve tried to do it in the past, and they haven’t been successful. They haven’t figured out how to connect with the students and the faculty, and through a partnership with us, we are helping them do that.”
Olivia Mcbain, a fourth-semester digital media and design major and student in the innovation house learning community, also spoke with The Daily Campus about the challenge of getting substantial UConn input in past years.
“They’re trying to do a 10-year plan to improve Mansfield, like the transportation, the piping systems[…] for the town,” Mcbain said. “They said that it’s really hard to connect UConn students to the citizens of Mansfield, there’s kind of like a barrier. So, [the town] asked us to come up with and help them with a survey that would help them in this 10-year plan to improve the town.”
Mcbain emphasized recent issues and room for improvement in housing and transportation for the Storrs-Mansfield area that might affect students and faculty.
“So, the inspiration for the students [to fill out the survey] is basically, like, the housing crisis that’s going on here, so that’s a big part of it,” Mcbain said. “We want to try to get more affordable housing on campus.”
Mcbain added that the class has already set up tables in the UConn Student Union to spread the word. According to Rocha, the class will gather input and maintain involvement in the project until mid-April. However, the survey will remain open until the end of May, according to Kaufman.
“The survey will be open until about May 31, so there’s an opportunity for people to complete it until then,” Kaufman said. “Then, during the summer we will be very busy drafting the plan, and then in September, we’ll be going out and doing our public hearings, and hopefully the plan will be adopted at that time.”
Kaufman emphasized that while the town is seeking more input from the university community this year, they are also continuing to reach out to the other residents of Mansfield. Additionally, input is not limited to just students, but also faculty and staff that might live in or commute to Mansfield.
“I think there’s been some concern that we’re doing an over emphasis on the UConn community without listening to the year-round residents,” Kaufman said. “[…]Obviously we need to consider UConn is within Mansfield, and we need to consider the needs of not just the students, but the faculty and staff. So[…]our UConn outreach is to the students, but also to the faculty and staff who may live in Mansfield [and those that] are commuting into Mansfield.”
Kaufman explained that she and other Town of Mansfield officials have promoted the survey in several areas of the town.
“[…]We were at our Celebrate Mansfield event this past September to kind of launch the event. I’ve been to Story Hour at the library. Michael Stankov [the Mansfield environmental planner/inland wetlands agent] …did game night. We were over at Juniper Hill [Village], which is a facility for low-income seniors. I’ve got door hangers that are going out to the affordable housing complex. We went door to door to several neighborhoods in town. So, we are really trying to reach out in a variety of ways[…]really just understanding what the community wants,” Kaufman added.
Rocha said that despite the end of the course arriving before the deadline for survey responses, the class will still assess their data collection and findings.
“We have a limit, because the students will be having exams and then leaving. So, our intention is to actively go after survey input for the next couple of weeks. Then, we’ll be looking at data collection. What do we find as a result? What kind of input did we get? And we will not actually take it to the end, because it will stay open for another few weeks beyond that point in time, but our own effort is going to last for the next [few] weeks,” Rocha said.
Kaufman spoke of the housing challenges that come with Mansfield being a college town.
“We have a number of students who come and live in Mansfield every year, and they need sort of temporary housing, it does have a big impact on Mansfield[…]The fact that UConn is located within Mansfield, we have a lot of multi-family developments, much more than any other town,” Kaufman said. “[…]We don’t have things like apartments for families or condos, or like duplexes or little cottage communities[…]We have a large senior population, and they want to be able to stay in Mansfield, so we really need to look at that.”
The survey and additional information about the plan can be found by visiting mansfieldtomorrow.org. According to the website, anyone that completes the survey will have the chance to win one of 10 $25 gift cards to a local business.