Looking for information on MAPC’s official meetings and legal notices? Find it here.
MAPC and the City of Newton invite you to attend a Kick-Off Roundtable Discussion to learn more about City’s process for developing the Climate Action Plan and to share your ideas on how should we act to combat climate change, considering Newton’s many strengths and singular needs. Please RSVP with your name and affiliation to climateplanning@newtonma.gov.
The Climate Action Plan, on which the City of Newton is partnering with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), will establish community-wide climate mitigation goals and identify potential measures to achieve them. It will be an action-driven plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lay out the pathway toward a sustainable, resilient, and healthy community for all.
Join MAPC and Springboard for the Arts for this exciting workshop exploring the nuts and bolts of creative placemaking as an approach to creative community development.
Click here to learn more.
Join the MAPC Clean Energy team for lessons learned from net zero case studies close to home and farther afield. This webinar is part of our Zero to 101 series to provide resources for our communities pursuing Net Zero targets.
Register for the webinar here.
Join MAPC on Wednesday, September 11, from 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM, for a free webinar on our new white paper, Hot, Cool, Clean: Clean Heating and Cooling Opportunities for Massachusetts Municipalities.
Across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, municipalities are embracing clean heating and cooling systems as important tools for reducing their energy costs and their greenhouse gas emissions. With recent technological advancements and evolving markets, air-source heat pumps, ground-source humps, and solar thermal have emerged as viable alternatives to fossil-fuel heating systems. Hot, Cool, Clean: Clean Heating and Cooling Opportunities for Massachusetts Municipalities highlights the technologies that are providing municipalities with cost-effective, low-carbon solutions for their heating and cooling needs. Join MAPC for this webinar to learn more about the incentives available to municipalities interested in clean heating and cooling and to hear from municipal leaders who have installed these systems.
We’re postponing… but! In response to the Massachusetts’s Governor’s guidance in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, we’re postponing this event. In the meantime, however, we’re still thinking about these important issues, and know you are, too. We invite you to sign up here to receive occasional emails on this and related topics. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to being in touch!
What can municipal staff working in the areas of planning, open space and recreation, and public arts do to address untold histories, engage with controversy, and leverage the power of public art and public memory in these discussions?
Join the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and New England Foundation for the Arts for a professional development workshop designed for municipal staff on new approaches to public memory and public art in Greater Boston.
In this workshop, you’ll learn about best practices for facilitating dialogue about controversial monuments and memorials in your community, and about inspiring examples of public art and public history projects that are transforming public memories of places around the country. You will also engage in small group discussions where you’ll have an opportunity to learn about lesser-known historic and cultural stories in our region and how those stories and experiences can be actively engaged in place-based planning and programming related to public art, creative placemaking/placekeeping initiatives, and more.
Facilitators and Speakers: To be announced
This event is part of a series organized by the MAPC’s Arts and Culture Department and NEFA’s Public Art Department in conjunction with MAPC’s MetroCommon 2050 planning process. This unique, cross-sector initiative brings together artists and creators, planners, and policymakers to discuss the evolving relationship among public art, public memory, and public policy and to explore how artists can envision and shape more inclusive, thriving spaces and communities in Greater Boston.
Join us for a conversation with staff from Franklin, Boston, Beverly, and Arlington as they chart a path to response and recovery for artists and arts organizations. We will be sharing preliminary findings of our regional survey and discussing how to provide more outdoor cultural programming as a safe COVID-19 strategy.
On June 22nd from 4:00-5:30 pm ET, join the MAPC Public Health and Arts & Culture departments as we unveil new artworks created by nine artists and artist teams that aim to spread the word about COVID-related public health advice. The artworks are available for public use by health agencies, municipalities, community groups, and the general public. Join us to celebrate the artists and receive links to the artworks available for digital download and sharing!
Learn more about the project at www.mapc.org/covid19-art.
Join us for an informational webinar about the next round of MAPC’s Accelerating Climate Resilience Municipal Grants which is launching the Invitation for Proposals on August 15!
MAPC is launching this next round to help advance strategies that protect people, places, and communities from the impacts of climate change.
Register for the informational webinar
For more information about the ACR grant program, please visit the program webpage.
The Accelerating Climate Resilience 2023 Speaker Series invites you to join us for our next webinar: Building Community Resilience: Starting with Mental Health. Join us on November 15 from 12pm to 1pm to learn more navigating the impacts of climate change on mental health and wellbeing. You will hear from three leaders, discussing pathways to center people in climate planning, healing pathways to build resilience, and offering resources and a hopeful lens for the future:
- Dr. Shalini Shah, DO, Division of General Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital
- Meghan Wise, Climate Hub Coordinator, UBC Climate Hub
- Nancy Rihan-Porter, Director of Equity, Resilience and Preparedness, Cambridge Public Health Department
EPA Region 1 continues to work on the development of a permit referred to as an “RDA Permit” – that will regulate stormwater run-off in the Charles, Mystic and Neponset River Watersheds.
In this webinar, the EPA will discuss the background and current development of the RDA permit, the types of actions that the permit will require, and will answer questions. The EPA is particularly interested in hearing from municipalities about how this permit can best be implemented to meet local as well as federal clean water goals.
For those unable to attend the presentation, there will be a chance after the draft permit is issued later this year, to provide comments to the EPA.