2025 Northern New England Planning Conference

November 3 -5, 2025 at the Holiday Inn by the Bay, Portland Maine

The Northern New England Chapter of the American Planning Association (NNECAPA) is pleased to host its 2025 Conference from Monday, November 3rd through Wednesday, November 5th at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland, Maine. We are planning this multi-day conference to provide opportunities for engagement, collaboration, and (re)establishing partnerships with your colleagues, new and old, throughout New England.

As we begin planning for the 2025 conference, help shape this year’s NNECAPA Conference by submitting your content and ideas! The Conference Committee seeks your ideas for sessions and workshops that will provide our conference attendees with a program that is interactive, informative, and inspirational! Submissions can cover any planning issues that are relevant to the range of New England communities.

The following is intended to be a guide for possible session ideas based on survey data from past conferences, but we welcome any ideas that you think will be worth sharing.

● Whether you have or have not made all the zoning amendments to support housing production in your community, how have you actually gotten housing built? Who are your partners? What did your finances look like? Tell us the success stories.

● Complete streets, safe streets for all, vision zero… What should the transportation network of tomorrow look like in big and small communities? What about rural communities?

● Are you planning for an energy transition? So many new land uses, so little time to capture all of the unknowns of the future of new and alternative energy sources.

● Do you have expertise in infrastructure planning? How has climate change and sea level rise changed the way you plan and fund infrastructure improvements?

● Putting science, or art in planning: do you just love stormwater, nature-based solutions, and green infrastructure and want to tell us about it? How have you used art or storytelling to inspire change?

● Do you work in a planning-adjacent or allied field and have information to share that would improve the planning profession, or are you a planner with a favorite allied field partnership that has had unexpected benefits to share?

● We want to know your hard won wisdom, preferred approaches, maxims, and rules of thumb to better project management, development review, navigating volunteer committees, and engaging with non-planners to support your work. Tell us your tips and tricks!

Session Formats

We look forward to offering attendees a highly engaging conference experience. We strongly encourage session proposals and formats that: share and prioritize lessons learned; inspire attendees with a new way of thinking about or doing the work of planning; are solutions-based and offer meaningful take-aways; and engage attendees in brainstorming and problem-solving. The Committee is seeking a diverse mix of session types that are approximately 60 to 90 minutes in length (except for mobile sessions) for our program. Sessions may be in any of the following formats:

● Presentation with Q&A (engage the audience)

● Panel Discussion

● On-site or Mobile Workshop (mini, ½ day, or full day)

● Rapid, Multi-part presentation (i.e. pecha kucha, “shorts”)

● Peer-to-peer Discussion

● “Deep Dive”

● Another new or innovative format

Submit your Ideas

Send your ideas to the Conference Committee by Friday, March 7, 2025 using the link below. You don’t have to have all the details of your proposal figured out right now; you’re welcome to submit a broad description of your session idea. The Committee will follow up with you to gather more information.

The Conference Committee will review all submitted ideas and develop a program that provides a variety of options for attendees and incorporates feedback from previous conference surveys.

Please submit your proposal via this Google Form: https://forms.gle/jYwc34QaR6yLUBWM9

Preparing for the Conference

Once a general program has been established, the Conference Committee may reach out to those who have identified themselves as speakers or session organizers for additional information or a preview of the presentation to ensure the content is consistent with the submission and that the session meets the goals of the conference. Final presentation slides and handouts will be due in digital format to the Conference Committee by Friday, October 24th at 12:00pm. This will help ensure that we can troubleshoot any IT needs, and manage smooth transitions between sessions. By submitting a session proposal, you are acknowledging this deadline.

Due to the limited budget for the conference, we are unable to offer travel expenses, honorariums, complimentary registrations, or lodging for session speakers. By submitting a session proposal, you are acknowledging this policy and understand that you will be responsible for covering the cost of your attendance if you are selected to present. As session organizer, you are responsible for communicating this policy to your co-presenters.

Please submit questions about this request for submissions or general conference inquiries to Nancy Kilbride, NNECAPA Administrator, at eventsyourwaynh22@gmail.com

Thank you in advance for sharing your ideas and contributing to the success of the Conference!

NNECAPA 2025 Host Committee

Sponsorship Opportunities

Each year the Northern New England Planning Conference provides businesses and organizations with an opportunity to build on existing relationships with the planning community and establish new ones, reaching out across New England to promote their services. We expect to have over 300 planners and related professionals from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as from Southern New England. We have three different sponsor levels which are very affordable and will provide you exposure. Become a sponsor today! Contact Nancy Kilbride for more details. Thank You.