Project overview: Vision Lynn, the city of Lynn’s first comprehensive plan, crafts a sustainable roadmap for future land use, urban form, and infrastructure throughout the city. Rather than an exhaustive list of policy recommendations, the Plan focuses on defining good growth and development for the Lynn community and establishes a clear physical development framework guiding growth over the next 20 years.
The framework addresses sustainable growth at various scales from larger citywide networks to the neighborhood and street. The project’s success relied on unpacking good urban design principles with the Lynn community, through clear and compelling illustrations, accessible language, and empathy and understanding of how these principles impact people’s everyday lives. The outcome is a meaningful, long-term plan that responds to what the community wants for its future.
Vision Lynn outlines three principles for achieving good growth: help existing activity nodes prosper and evolve, link activity nodes to maximize accessibility and convenience, and preserve existing industrial activity and foster new commercial opportunities for the Lynn community. To envision these principles in practice, the planning team generated future development scenarios exploring land use mixes and density, building form and scale, public realm design, access and connectivity, open space and stormwater management strategies, economic opportunities, and larger urban connections to and within the city. The scenarios highlighted the interconnectedness of these important topics, balancing community interests and needs, and resulting in more specific design visions that maximize several potential co-benefits for the Lynn community, including opportunities for new housing, better jobs, and public services.
Project location: Lynn, Massachusetts
Firm name: Utile, Inc.
Project Initiation: 2022
Jury comments: The images for this plan are captivating and strongly highlight the moves from local engagement to envisioned future growth to perspectival experience of that growth. The narrative and application outline a strong understanding of the areas’ industrial, economic, transit, and natural resources.
Client: City of Lynn
Images/Photographer(s): Mapping and Analysis: Outwith Studio Transportation & Mobility Advisory: Nelson\Nygaard Economic Development Advisory: Landwise Advisor Infrastructure & Site Engineering Advisory: Tetra Tech Landscape & Open Space Advisory: Brown, Richardson + Rowe Media Productions: Steven Foley
