Overview
Click to download the Regional Policy Plan.
The Cape Cod Commission Act requires the preparation of a Regional Policy Plan (RPP) that provides regional planning policies and objectives to guide development and protect the region’s resources. The plan must identify critical resources and management needs, include a growth policy, contain regional goals, and provide a policy for coordinating regional and local planning efforts. The 2025 Update of the Regional Policy Plan was approved as Barnstable County Ordinance 25-13, effective December 29, 2025.
Growth Policy
Growth should be focused in centers of activity and areas supported by adequate infrastructure and guided away from areas that must be protected for ecological, historical or other reasons. Development should be responsive to context allowing for the restoration, preservation and protection of the Cape’s unique and finite resources while promoting economic, environmental, and community resilience.
Cape Cod Systems
This RPP remains focused around a suite of interrelated systems that comprise Cape Cod: natural, built, and community systems. Natural systems are an integral part of life on Cape Cod, providing drinking water and supporting the habitats and landscapes that draw people to the region, guiding development patterns, and driving the region's economy. Built systems - the human-made physical elements of the region - allow for people to live, visit, and work onthe Cape. Community systems are the social activities and qualities of the region, including the economy and cost of living, which depends on the health of both the natural and built systems.
Key Regional Priorities
While the previous RPP included a section on the region’s key challenges, the 2025 RPP includes a reframed and revised section on regional priorities. More forward looking and action oriented, this RPP articulates key priorities to guide regional planning work for the next several years. The key regional priorities are: protecting open space and natural resources, restoring and protecting coastal and fresh water quality, mitigating climate change and adapting to its impacts, preserving historic and cultural resources, increasing housing attainability, planning and providing for necessary infrastructure, and strengthening the economy.
Placetypes Across the Region
The RPP identifies eight placetypes across the region. They recognize and support the different and unique places across Cape Cod and serve as a conceptual framework for context-sensitive planning and regulation.
Goals and Objectives
The RPP adopts goals and objectives to guide and plan for the future of the region in a manner consistent with the vision and growth policy. The goals and objectives derive from the values and purposes of the Cape Cod Commission Act, preserving and enhancing the region's assets.
Organized around the region's natural, built, and community systems, these goals and objectives form the structure upon which the region's planning work relies, serve as touchstones to guide, implementation actions, and set the measures by which the regulatory review process takes place.
Regional Regulatory Review
The Cape Cod Commission Act charges the Cape Cod Commission with reviewing certain proposed developments which, because of their size or other characteristics, are presumed to have development effects beyond their local communities. The RPP focuses on the review of developments in relation to their surrounds and 15 goals and objectives, which may vary based on how projects are classified by Placetype.
Recommended Actions
The RPP identifies actions that the Commission commits to undertake including planning efforts to advance the key priorities. These actions are organized around the Natural Systems, Built Systems, and Community Systems. Many of these actions will require collaboration and partnerships with various entities and stakeholders to achieve. In addition to planning actions, the Commission will continue to regularly review its Development of Regional Impact thresholds to ensure they are encouraging appropriate and sensitive development patterns. There is an additional recommended action to measure progress across the Cape Cod Systems by developing a comprehensive online viewer to track progress across major regional plans. This action draws on the performance tracking emphasis in each issue-specific regional plan to centralize monitoring of key metrics while fostering regional coordination and data-driven decision-making.
