Priority Development Sites in Salisbury, MA

Salisbury is a small coastal beach town and summer tourist destination in Essex County. The community is a popular summer resort beach town and is home to the new Salisbury Beach Boardwalk, souvenir shops, restaurants, cafes, arcades and panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean. The population was 8,283 at the 2010 census.[1] Parts of town comprise the census designated place of Salisbury.

Modern Salisbury is highly diverse geographically, encompassing square fifteen miles of farms, beach, marshlands and both residential and commercial space. As of the year 2000, nearly 9,200 acres make up the town’s open space, of which nearly 40% is forested, and more than a third is 21 wetland and estuary. Ten percent is in open and agricultural land, and four percent is recreational.

The Town includes four distinctly different areas: Salisbury Beach, a barrier beach with miles of beautiful sandy Atlantic Ocean beaches and salt marshes surrounding dense residential and commercial beachfront development; Salisbury Plains, featuring farms and suburban homes set in fields and rolling woodlands; Salisbury Square, a colonial village center with churches, municipal buildings and village residences; and Ring’s Island, once a colonial fishing village facing Newburyport on the Merrimack River and now supporting a neighborhood of restored antique Homes and riverfront marine businesses.