Vermont Council on Planning, 2004-2005
The Vermont Council on Planning (VCP) envisioned a future in which coordinated municipal, regional, and state plans are implemented in line with statewide goals to guide development, conservation, and resource protection in the interests of all Vermonters.
Like all of VCRD’s councils, the membership of the Vermont Council on Planning was selected to be a leadership group, comprised of members of state agencies, Vermont Legislators, business, housing and environmental directors, legal experts, federal representatives, and regional and local planners and officials. The Council met for one year and was charged with considering the challenges of municipal, regional and state planning and the structure of the system as a whole. The decision to form a policy council around the issue of planning arose from a series of VCRD Rural Summits exploring issues such as affordable housing development, agricultural viability, transportation, land use and economic development that were linked by a common thread of concern around planning.
A 2004 Summit devoted exclusively to the “Structure of the Planning System in Vermont” was used to launch the VCP. Participants at the 2004 summit identified the following broad areas as challenges:
- Inefficiencies and Inconsistencies in the Planning System: The planning system was identified as unwieldy and inefficient. It was noted that many Vermont towns either lack a town plan or have one that is vague, impeding planners, developers and regulators’ ability to interpret them. The support provided to municipalities by Regional Planning Commissions was deemed inconsistent, and participants believed that incentives for strong plans were weak. It was noted that funding, resources and training for planning agencies are inadequate.
- Insufficient Public Engagement: Summit participants noted that it is difficult to engage the public in the planning process, and that public participation is selective, i.e. often occurring in reaction to specific projects (NIMBYism) rather than encompassing the whole process.
- Lack of Coordination and Collaboration: A need to coordinate comprehensive regional plans was noted, as well as the need to increase collaboration between municipal and state agencies.
- Concerns Around Growth and Scale: Participants pointed to the tough decisions Vermonters need to make about the issue of growth and scale, and considered how Vermont’s planning system could help communities plan for development while protecting an area’s quality of life and local assets.
- Act 200: A comprehensive revision of the planning laws in Vermont, Act 200 was enacted in 1988 under Governor Madeline Kunin, and had a tremendous impact on Vermont planning. It provided an incentive to improve planning at all levels, set statewide goals for the planning system, and was seen as a vanguard tool against pressures of growth. It also espoused the benefits of coordination among communities with the goal of greater consistency between local, regional and state plans.
Participants at the VCRD summit saw a need to revisit the accomplishments of Act 200, which they believed suffered from a lack of funding and a failure to accomplish some of its goals, particularly in the coordination of planning across levels needed to empower plans at each level.
Following are the broad areas of recommendation following the VCP’s work.
- Governance, Authority, and Leadership
- The Governor and State Legislature should provide leadership
- Statutes should be updated
- Clear lines of planning jurisdiction should be established
- Establish long-term funding
- Provide consistent planning services
- Improve public access to information
- Coordination and Collaboration
- Build an office of planning coordination to serve as a central clearinghouse for planning and research
- Establish a Vermont Planning Commission
- Education and Training
- Improve training for local board members and staff
- Establish an annual Vermont Planning Conference
- Issues of Growth and Scale
- Adopt growth center legislation
- Allow counties to establish Councils of Governments
- Add economic development elements to local and regional plans
- Plan for diverse populations
VCRD Findings
- Led by residents and volunteers, and adopted by municipalities, local planning is a fundamental feature of modern democracy, but is not always supported with recognition or resources commensurate with its importance. Local and regional planning volunteers work heroically to improve the long-term circumstances of their communities.
- It is inherently difficult to visualize the challenges of the future, but the attempt is essential for successful planning to prepare for them. Otherwise, plans leave community assets unprotected and residents then rely on reactive NIMBY responses. Planning is essential to true and democratic local control.
- It is difficult, but critically important, to plan for economic development, commerce, housing, infrastructure, and the future of the working landscape, not just against growth. Otherwise cumulative development proceeds in a piecemeal, uncoordinated, and irrational way, and the goals and democratically derived decisions of residents are moot. We do not do enough to plan for the economy we want, and instead, often battle over what we do not want. More pro-active planning could set direction that could invite economic and community development in line with community goals; left unarticulated, these goals may fuel resistance to change rather than guidance to its direction.
- Without strong planning, communities rely on the regulatory system to make their development decisions. The regulatory system becomes the post-facto planning system, empowering project abutters and interest groups in development decisions that, in more pro-active planning processes, could be arrived at democratically in service to longer term community and regional goals.
- While there are tremendous strengths in local, regional and state planning, Vermont’s planning system is plagued by the lack of a center point to coordinate information and communications vertically—between towns, regions and state agencies—and horizontally among state agencies. This undermines the efficiency, effectiveness and power of the system.
- Municipalities need more help throughout the state, and the regional planning system and the regional plans need increased authority.
- Vermont faces rapid change in its demographics and economy related to energy, global warming, and the challenges of affordability that make an integrated process of town, regional, and state planning more important than at any point in the state’s history.
