Town Planner reflects on eventful first year on the job

By Mary Ann Price

Canton Town Planner Taylor “TJ” Torres finished his first year as a town planner a few months ago, taking inspiration from his parents, who both worked for the city of Taunton. His father was a city attorney and his mother was a school administrator who continues to teach.

“I grew up around public service,” Torres said. “It’s my calling and I love it.”

Town Planner TJ Torres

As the town planner, Torres handles a variety of responsibilities. “It’s a lot of keeping tabs on a broad array of things going on in town and trying to keep projects moving forward,” he said. “I think the four pillars of planning are transportation, environmental, housing, and economic development. I work on all of those fronts, and what ties into everything is the future of Canton.”

In addition to authoring and implementing a variety of planning grants, Torres also drafts zoning articles that are presented at Annual Town Meeting and serves on a variety of town committees, including the Economic Development, Master Plan and Climate Action Plan committees as well as the Affordable Housing Trust. He also checks in with the Walk, Bike & Hike Committee.

Torres has a degree in history from Bridgewater State University and tried teaching, but found that it was not for him. Instead he became involved with a local bike path committee, which introduced him to grant writing and eventually led him to the position of grants coordinator for the city of Taunton. He also has a master’s degree in public administration from BSU.

In Taunton, Torres worked under the Department of Economic and Community Development, writing grants that covered a wide variety of needs, from streets to parks to health issues and then implementing them when the funds were available. “It gave me a broad view of municipal government,” he said.

He also worked on small business programs and housing, connecting with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and gaining experience with visionary planning.

At this year’s town meeting, a number of zoning changes were approved. One of those was updating the table of permitted uses in the downtown area.

Torres said he based his recommendations on a study conducted by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) concerning uses in the downtown area, which runs from Capen Place to the intersection of Washington and Sherman streets, including Town Hall. Prior to town meeting, for example, it was still permissible to add a graveyard in the downtown area, as well as a store that sold farmyard implements. Single-family homes and duplexes were also allowed in business areas but are no longer permissible.

“We want to protect our commercial areas,” Torres said. “I work with the Economic Development Committee. They know how important it is to have a strong commercial tax base, because then that’s less of a burden to the residential homeowners.”

The MAPC also had suggestions for design guidelines for the buildings in the downtown area. The town is now looking at those suggestions and working toward addressing them.

Torres also worked on the implementation of three grants that were awarded to the town in the past year, including a $10,000 state grant that funded the recent purchase and installation of assisted listening devices in the library’s Community Room.

Torres said funding from the second grant, which was awarded last fall through the state Community Compact program, is paying for consulting services to support the development of an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Transition Plan. As part of this work, a team of consultants spent a week in July visiting every public building, park, and school to assess barriers to accessibility. The team will then prepare a report that will outline the corrective actions that are needed to ensure full ADA compliance.

Funding from the third grant will go toward the completion of a reuse study for the former St. Gerard’s Church property on Washington Street. After the town purchased the property in 2022, officials surveyed residents about the kinds of uses they preferred for the site, and among the top choices were a community center, a new location for the senior center, space for social services functions, and recreational uses.

“Now what we’ll do is have an architectural firm take a look at the existing buildings and the site as a whole and come up with a couple different potential scenarios,” Torres said. One such scenario would involve repurposing the existing buildings; another would be to look at what is possible through new construction. “Everything is based off the public input that we collected,” he said.

In his role as town planner, Torres also works closely with Kevin Shea, the housing coordinator for the town. “Housing’s a big issue right now,” he said. “Planning is big picture; it’s long term. How do we plan to keep housing affordable in Canton?”

Torres added that new signs welcoming visitors to Canton will be placed at entrances to the town in the fall, including either end of Route 138, Randolph Street, Neponset Street, and Cobb’s Corner. The signs were approved at town meeting and will be shades of green and gold with a circle bump-out for the town seal.

One project that Torres spent a significant amount of time on was the implementation of the MBTA zoning requirement. The new state law requires all cities and towns served by the MBTA to have at least one zoning district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted by right.

“It was definitely challenging,” he said of ensuring Canton’s compliance, an endeavor that included minute details such as figuring out boundaries and lot size and collaboration with the building commissioner, housing coordinator, town administrator, and zoning and planning boards.

Torres said he felt the biggest issue for the public was the fact that the requirement came from the state. “It was a mandate, which was hard. Change is hard in general,” he said.

Torres approached the MBTA zoning requirement as he does many of his professional responsibilities: with balance. “Doing what’s best for the town, but also addressing the housing crisis, which is a problem for Massachusetts and the United States,” he said.

After a number of town forums and outreach initiatives, the zoning was approved at town meeting and has been sent to the attorney general’s office for approval. However, Torres stressed that the actual production of new housing will be up to the individual property owners.

“The analogy I use is that zoning is the recipe, and we can put the recipe in place, but it’s up to those private property owners whether they want to cook it or not,” he said.

Torres said the biggest adjustment in his new job was changing from a city government to a town government. “Here there are a lot more citizens who are involved,” he said. “It’s less about bureaucracy and more committees. There’s a lot of volunteers in this town, which is great. I’ve learned the importance of really communicating with all these different committees and stakeholders in the town and approaching everything with a team effort.”

Torres and his wife, Jamie, are the proud parents of three sons: Kingston, 3, Hudson, 1, and Lincoln, who is 3 months old.

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