ROYALSTON – Some three dozen Royalston residents showed up at Town Hall Saturday morning to air their opinions and concerns about the future of the community.

The gathering was held to solicit input on a variety of topics related to Royalston 2050, the effort to develop a master plan for the town.

The meeting was facilitated by Phil Rabinowitz, chair of the Royalston 2050 Core Group, a subcommittee of sorts for the Planning Board, which will be responsible for writing the master plan.

He further explained that the effort to compile a master plan is being coordinated by the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission (MRPC).

“Today, we want to look at the different elements that the state says we’re supposed to address, to examine some of the specifics we need to look at,” he said.

Those elements, according to a handout distributed at the meeting, include land use, housing, economic development, natural and cultural resources, open space and recreation, services and facilities, circulation/transportation, and implementation.

The MRPC, said Rabinowicz, has already done some work around land use planning, housing, and economic development.

Subsequently, those in attendance broke up into several groups, all taking time to discuss each of the remaining five elements of the master plan.

“I thought we had a really good session,” Rabinowitz told the Athol Daily News the day after the event. “After we broke into groups, people really went to it. There was very active discussion... And there were a lot of new faces, which I was very pleased about. A pretty wide range of issues were raised.”

Asked about topics that generated the most discussion, Rabinowitz said, “There was a lot of talk around use of space, the use of open space and whether zoning needed to be changed. Affordable housing came up in a couple of groups. Interestingly enough, there was talk about transportation. People were saying, ‘Well, we’re in Royalston; there’s nothing but cars.’ But, in fact, there were questions about whether the Northern Tier Rail is going to happen and how that could change things.

“That’s what we were looking for really, to get people to identify some areas that really need to be looked at within the guidelines from the state, and to become more aware of just how complex the planning process is. People need to have an idea of how many things need to be considered in order to come up with a plan that really works.”

One recurring topic, Rabinowitz said, is the King Street Bridge.

“That’s been a thorn in our side for a long time,” he said. “That ties into a lot of other stuff, because it ties into the hiking trails, access for emergency vehicles, revitalization of the South Village – and it carries the sewer line.”

One issue that most people haven’t given much thought to, he said, are cemeteries.

“There was a former cemetery commissioner in one group and he pointed out we’re going to need more cemetery space,” Rabinowitz added. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I was hoping would come up. That’s something I hadn’t thought of, certainly.”

People, said Rabinowitz, also seemed hopeful that Royalston could maintain its small-town character.

“The town is sort of lost in time,” he said. “And folks seem to want that to remain, but how do you figure out how to do that and still deal with the pressures and changes that are likely to happen that have nothing to do with the town, per se?”

As for the future of the planning process, Rabinowitz said, “The core group is meeting next week, and we’ll obviously figure that out. But I think that moving forward what we’re going to do is hold some smaller meetings and see how those go and collect as much information as we can. We just need to figure out whether each meeting is going to be geared toward a specific element; that’s something we need to work out. This is grassroots stuff.”

The Royalston 2050 Core Group continues to encourage residents to fill out a six-question survey which, the committee hopes, will assist in compiling the master plan. The survey is available at Phineas S. Newton Library, the Post Office, Town Hall and Whitney Hall.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.