Orleans Planning Board Presents Draft Comprehensive Plan to Select Board for Town Meeting

ORLEANS -- March 24, 2026, Orleans Planning Board briefs Select Board on draft 242-page comprehensive plan headed for town meeting. Planning Director George Meservey presented the draft Orleans Comprehensive Plan, branded "Orleans 2050", to Select Board members Michael Herman and Andrea Shaw Reed at the March 24 hybrid meeting, describing a document built on 569 survey responses, two visioning workshops attended by roughly 150 residents, and three rounds of board and committee review. Herman called the plan "excellent" and "very readable" but flagged factual corrections including a population figure he believes should be 6,280 and pushed for language addressing underground utility electrification as a long-range resilience goal. Shaw Reed argued forcefully that the 2006 plan failed because boards and committees were never truly engaged as partners: "The mechanism by which we keep the plan alive needs to change." The board agreed to add language to the plan's governance section linking the document to cross-board accountability, and Meservey said a final version incorporating a rewritten executive summary and updated branding may not be ready until shortly before town meeting.