In 2018 the Town of Andover received a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Planning Grant to organize a series of community resilience building planning workshops. The Town with assistance from the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission held two workshops in January 2019. The first workshop at Old Town Hall focused on characterizing the Town’s top hazards followed by small table group discussions to identify community features most vulnerable to natural hazards exacerbated by climate change and define community assets that contribute to mitigating risk and aiding recovery. The second workshop a week later at Memorial Hall Library centered on discussion of actions in the realms of infrastructure, social economy and environment the Town can undertake to build a more resilient Andover and better prepare for future emergencies.
The Final Draft of the Andover MVP Summary of Findings Report can be found here Andover Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Summary of Findings Draft Report June - 2019. Comments on the final draft will be accepted through June 17, 2019. Please send all comments to planning@andoverma.gov.
With completion of the resilience building planning process, Andover can become a formally designated as an MVP community and become eligible for MVP action grants to undertake technical plans as well as design and construct priority resilience projects.