About the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission
You may have seen us mentioned in news articles. You may have attended a meeting we organized. You may have participated in a survey we conducted. But if you are like most people, you probably do not know much about us - who we are, what we do, why we do it, and where we fit in the public policy picture.
The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC) is the designated regional planning body for the Pioneer Valley region. Our focus is both local - for the good of individual communities - and regional - for the good of the area overall.
Although PVPC is a public sector agency, we are not a direct arm of the federal or state governments–rather, we're a consortium of local governments that have banded together under provisions of state law to address problems and opportunities that are regional in scope or that are too large for individual cities and towns to resolve on their own. We are the public agency with primary responsibility for increasing communication, cooperation, and coordination among all levels of government as well as the private business and civic sectors in order to benefit the region at large and to improve its residents' quality of life.
A staff of professional planners and other specialists serves as the hub of the commission's work. We advise local officials, business groups, legislators, and state and federal agencies. We do demographic and economic analysis. We provide research and analysis services in economic development, transportation and transit, environment and land use, community and rural development, and many other planning areas. We assist communities by performing traffic counts at busy intersections, writing grant proposals to build senior centers, reviewing zoning regulations governing land uses from residential homes to cell phone towers, and much more. On a broader scale, we promote and encourage regional collaboration among our member communities.