The COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLS PROJECT (formerly the Community Planning Demonstration Project) is a multi-faceted effort to coordinate the provision of basic planning tools to regional and local planners as well the public. The project's primary objective is to develop data tools that will support community planning activities in Vermont. This project has focused on the development and enhancement of tools to assist municipal land use officials in the data collection and analysis aspects of their duties.
As a member organization of the Vermont Land Use Education and Training Collaborative, the Center for Rural Studies played a crucial part in the development of the Vermont Planning Information Center. This website provides a clearinghouse of information for planning commissions, zoning boards, development review boards, and their staff and all others involved in land use planning and regulation in Vermont. It includes details on online and hard-copy sources for education, where to go for funding and grants, organizations to contact for assistance with various topics, and a database of upcoming training events in Vermont.
Project Contact: Will Sawyer, Center for Rural Studies
The Build Out program was developed by the Addison County Regional Planning Commission as a tool to allow towns to integrate GIS data
with current or proposed land use polices to provide both graphic and quantitative
analysis. The Build Out software was built in the Arcview 3.x series to be run on computer desktops.
Using E-911, Parcel data, and Zoning area and regulations, the software estimates the
number of housing units that could be built on a given parcel or town.
The process entails: 1. Construction of a table of each parcel’s acreage
by zoning district, 2. Determination of existing parcels that are fully developed,
3. and Calculation of potential new development allowed in each zone. Natural
resource and geographic data layers may provide additional considerations. The newest version of the program also incorporates
overlay districts, road frontage and a simple analysis of commercial/industrial areas.
The software is distributed freely, and can be used with data from other Vermont
communities. See the software download site.
Project Contact: Kevin Behm, Addison County Regional Planning Commission
For further questions about this project, contact Will Sawyer, Project Manager.
This website contains materials based upon work supported by the
Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, under Award No. 2002-34269-11806, 2003-34269-13439, 2004-34269-14428, 2005-34269-15671, 2006-34269-16917, 2008-34269-18994, & 2009-34269-19870. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are
those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Special thanks to Senator Patrick Leahy.
Last modified November 05 2009 10:50 AM
