Governor Shumlin Announces Approximately $450,000 in Funding for Local Planning Initiatives

Governor Peter Shumlin announced the recipients of approximately $450,000 in Municipal Planning Grants that will assist 46 local communities plan for future growth and development, revitalize cities and towns, and help protect communities from future floods.

“These grants provide local communities with the tools they need to map their economic future while protecting their natural environment. The downtown development and job creation in Newport, for example,
would not be moving forward today without the planning grant assistance that helped the community develop a vision for their future and then work to bring it to fruition,” Governor Shumlin said.

Noelle MacKay, Commissioner of the Department of Economic, Housing, and Community Development added, “These planning grants help turn the residents’ aspirations for their community into local policies that determine what can be built, where it will be built, and what it will look like. These local decisions are critical as we all work hard to revitalize our downtowns and villages, prepare for our economic future and build stronger neighborhoods.”

The planning grants support a range of locally identified initiatives to improve the living and working environments and promote efficient growth and development. The Department of Economic, Housing and Community Development (DEHCD) selected projects from a pool of requests from 61 communities requesting over $610,000.

Some of this year’s project highlights include funding to support community studies and forums in Pittsfield and Windsor to turn the lessons learned from Irene into policies that promote safe development, assistance to Barre to modernize and streamline the local permit approval process in its downtown, an economic development study for the Mad River Valley to help better diversify the workforce and improve the local economy, and a study to identify and quantify the housing needs in Bennington.

Since 1998, the Municipal Planning Grant program has provided over $9.1 million to cities and towns across Vermont. A summary of all the FY 2013 grant awards with local and regional contact information follows.

Learn more at: http://accd.vermont.gov/strong_communities/opportunities/funding/overview/municipal_planning_grants.