Residents and businesses will be asked to envision the Apponaug of the future tomorrow evening as they start work on a new five-year village master plan.

Now more than ever, because of the $22 million that will be spent on the Apponaug circulator, that plan offers a greater chance for change than any preceding plan. Further opening the door to change is the recent abandonment of the village historical district zoning in favor of village zoning, with an emphasis on maintaining the character of a community of residences and businesses within close proximity without so much attention to the historical correctness of structures and building materials.

“Now that the circulator is going through, a lot of the problems are being addressed,” said Michael Dowhan, senior landscape architect for Veri-Waterman Associates, the firm retained to develop the master plan.

The circulator that will extend Veterans Memorial Drive west through the former Apponaug Mills property to intersect with Centerville and Toll Gate Roads will divert traffic from the village center. Also, improvements associated with the project will widen sidewalks and open the village to pedestrian use.

“When the first five-year village master plan was drafted, traffic was all we could talk about,” recalls Apponaug Village Improvement Association President Jeff Gofton.

Gofton is anxious to see a plan that makes the village a viable economic entity. Also, he is hopeful Wednesday’s charette, where those in attendance break out into smaller groups to solicit ideas, will come up with fresh concepts to be incorporated into the new five-year plan.

Neither Dowhan, nor Kevin Sullivan, the city’s community development director, wants to impose their ideas on the Apponaug of the future. Community Development Block Grant federal funds will underwrite the $25,000 cost of the master plan. As a practice, the city has adopted a procedure of updating village master plans and investing $100,000 in CDBG funding in those projects on a rotating basis. Communities eligible for the funding based on the 2000 Census include Pontiac, East Natick, Oakland Beach, Conimicut and Apponaug.

“What can be done to enhance [the village] after the circulator is done,” Sullivan said of the goal of an updated Apponaug master plan.

He said he is looking forward to hearing residents and businesses describe the opportunities they see for the village.

“We’re looking at a clean slate and what’s important to people. The community is telling us what is important,” he said.

Tomorrow’s meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the Police Headquarter’s Community Room and is the first step in the process. It is to be followed in about a month when Veri-Waterman Associates present a draft master plan that incorporates suggestions. Depending on the feedback at that meeting, an additional public meeting may be held before finalization of the plan and its presentation to the Apponaug Village Improvement Association.

Dowhan sees discussion focused on the middle of the village and how to make that even more pedestrian friendly. Issues that could be discussed, he said, are the development of sidewalks on side streets and opening the village to its seaside origins in Apponaug Cove. An example of the connection with the cove might be a cove overlook, although at this time the city doesn’t have any property for such an amenity.

Gofton is excited about the potential of incorporating the waterfront into a master plan.

Also, with so much traffic going through Apponaug daily, he notes it is a special place to the whole city that can take on new meaning if properly developed.

Dowhan’s point is that while conditions impose restrictions on what can and cannot be done, people should come forward with ideas regardless of how impractical they may seem.

“In the early phases [of drafting a master plan] the sky’s the limit,” he said.

Yet, he adds, “When it comes down to finalizing a master plan, no one knows the community as the residents do.