Master Plan Survey Looks to Gather Town Opinions

The Aug. 8 Master Plan Steering Committee met on Aug. 8 to coordinate their information-gathering process for Londonderry’s Master Plan.
Sylvia Von Aulock of the Southern N.H. Planning Commission outlined the challenge of finding new ways to “reach a whole multitude of folks” to see what residents wanted out of their town over the next decade.
A central pillar of their information-gathering strategy was an effective outreach questionnaire set to go out in time for Old Home Day.
“Last week, we had a discussion about our people and the frame of mind to fill out the survey at Old Home Day,” said Committee Chair, Jeff Penta. “How do we maximize the surveys being provided to residents, knowing that completing a high numbered question survey in the middle of summer is a lot to ask?”
The hope was to hand out cards with QR codes linking to the survey from their Old Home Day booth, although there were concerns about whether the site would be ready in time for the event. Other ideas included setting up a social media page for the Committee, probing for survey results at the Senior Expo, going to the YMCA, and Londonderry High School to ensure they would get feedback from every age group in town.
As we’ve been going down this planning process, I’ve been thinking about drawing the school system into this discussion, and we haven’t been doing it,” stated Committee member, Lynn Wiles. “I think that’s a critical component of why people live in this town.”
Resident, Ray Breslin, agreed with the need to focus more on schools, calling it “extremely important” to contact administrators, teachers, and students.
“We’ve got to be careful with social media comments because we don’t know if everybody is from Londonderry,” warned Town Councilor Shawn Faber. “Someone from Alabama could say ‘You know what,’ I want to bulldoze the town square.'”
The idea is to get feedback from local Londonderry residents.
“It’s anonymous. We’re not taking names, contacts, phone numbers, and addresses, we’re not doing that,” said Von Aulock. “I’m hoping we get between 500 and 800 participants.” She expected the survey to remain open for six to eight weeks, noting that the Committee was a little behind when she originally wanted to open the study.
“What are we doing with the survey results?” asked Penta. “We’re going to be taking those, assessing those, and reviewing them so we can go out and have deeper conversations with constituents.”
Another goal was to have the questions for the Master Plan surveys finished and reviewed before Old Home Day, where the Committee is scheduled to have an informational booth.
Von Aulock wanted to have a large map of the town at that booth to give everyone an idea of the project’s scope while getting a more informal idea of what the Master Plan might accomplish.
“Where’s the heart of Londonderry? What makes Londonderry special? What would you like to see happen in Londonderry?” asked Von Aulock, going over a few of the questions she wanted to ask.
About 50 questions will be in the survey. Residents are not required to respond to every question.