VNRC’s Smart Growth Goals for the 2008 Legislative Session

VNRC has long advocated for smart growth strategies that drive development towards town and city centers and help safeguard Vermont’s rural, working landscapes. Act 250 is one of Vermont’s most important tools to accomplish smart growth land use planning goals. In the 2008 legislative session, VNRC is advocating targeted adjustments to Act 250 that strengthen the state’s ability to create transit-oriented communities and protect valuable farm and forestlands outside town centers.
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VNRC: Active on Growth Centers

VNRC continues to work to strengthen Vermont’s downtowns as well as protect the state’s spectacular and countryside. Specifically, VNRC has been a part of several initiatives implementing the “growth center” law passed last year, including shaping a manual to help guide communities through the Growth Center designation process and developing an interim procedure to reduce the effect of development on agricultural lands.
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Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative

The following organizations have joined together to launch a collaborative effort to advance policy, education and community strategies to reduce sprawl and achieve smart growth in Vermont.
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Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative: Housing Endorsement Program

The Housing Endorsement Program is a Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative initiative to actively encourage smart growth development that provides housing for all Vermonters. Since December 2001, the VSGC has been working with the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, Housing Vermont, and other housing organizations to create a voluntary housing endorsement program, which uses criteria to evaluate new housing projects based on smart growth principles. Guidance for the criteria came from "Growing Smarter, Best Site Planning Practices for Residential, Commercial and Industrial Development", a project of the Vermont Forum on Sprawl and an advisory group, including architects, landscape architects, preservationists, planners, homebuilders, environmentalists, community developers, realtors and government representatives. Projects which effectively demonstrate smart growth principles during their planning stages will earn a VSGC endorsement or "stamp of approval." This endorsement could be submitted with other project materials during the planning and permitting stages.
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Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative Citizen Education and Outreach Program

The Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative is pleased to offer workshops and technical assistance on smart growth planning tools and strategies for communities and citizens. The Collaborative’s members have a wide range of experience in community and regional planning, legal assistance, environmental science, housing, community development, landscape architecture, historic preservation and other fields.
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Higher Standards for Big Box Campaign

In the summer of 2005, VNRC joined forces with the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign and the Vermont Workers’ Center in a partnership aimed at holding Wal-Mart and other big boxes accountable to the people and places where they locate. The “Higher Standards for Big Box Campaign” is a focused effort to merge the social justice, labor and environmental interests of each organization.
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Mercantiles: A Promising Alternative to Big Boxes

Community-owned retail stores, like this 'mercantile' in Powell, Wyoming, are a promising solution communities are embracing to provide consumers access to quality, affordable products without sacrificing their local economy or character.
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Keeping the Vermont We Love

In a recent commentary published in several of Vermont's statewide newspapers, VNRC's Executive Director Elizabeth Courtney asks Vermonters: What would your “last straw” be before you’d take serious action to avoid losing the Vermont you love? To avoid such a fate, Elizabeth asks concerned citizens to join VNRC in encouraging state legislators to pass legislation this year to protect the Vermont we love.
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VNRC Succeeds in Securing Protections for Farmland

At VNRC’s urging, a key legislative committee recently blocked a state agency proposal that would have weakened protections for some of Vermont’s best farm soils.

On August 29 the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR) told the Natural Resources Board (NRB) to rethink its proposed rule change to Act 250 — Vermont’s important land use and development control law -- and work with groups like VNRC to bring a better proposal before the committee.
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New Report Indicates State Dollars are Driving Sprawl

Last month, the Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative, on which VNRC serves as a member, released a report highlighting the fact that the State of Vermont is spending tax dollars on projects that are driving sprawl and contributing to global warming. The State of Vermont Smart Growth Progress Report concluded that the state has done little to strengthen existing communities, safeguard Vermont’s working landscapes, and protect our natural resources. To address this problem, the report makes many recommendations that would redirect Vermont dollars toward smart growth initiatives.
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