September 23, 2013 — The (Gloucester Harbor Plan) committee continues to move methodically toward developing a comprehensive use plan for the city’s historic harbor and it is doing so against the concurrent forces of the persistent debate over the city’s Designated Port Area, a survey of the DPA’s boundaries and long-standing questions about the future of the city’s signature commercial fishing industry.
The future of Gloucester’s harbor, a city consultant says, may be “more about what you can do than what you want to do.”
That’s an assessment from Kevin Hively, a principal with the Rhode Island-based Ninigret partners firm carrying out a study of Gloucester’s waterfront real estate. And while Hively’s presentation last week came as the Gloucester Harbor Plan Committee met for the ninth time, the handout for the meeting said it all: work in progress.
The committee continues to move methodically toward developing a comprehensive use plan for the city’s historic harbor and it is doing so against the concurrent forces of the persistent debate over the city’s Designated Port Area, a survey of the DPA’s boundaries and long-standing questions about the future of the city’s signature commercial fishing industry.
The current timetable calls for the committee and its consultant, Rhode Island-based Ninigret Partners, to complete a draft plan by the end of January that, following public review and the gathering of endorsements, would be submitted to the state for review and approval sometime in May, according to Sarah Garcia, the city’s harbor planning director.