How We Can Help
Smart Growth Vermont can help your community plan for the future in a way that maximizes past investments in our downtowns and villages, maintains Vermont's quality of life and protects our unique landscape. Whether you are revising a Town Plan, updating zoning bylaws or evaluating a development proposal, we have the tools and resources to make a difference in your community. Our programs are designed to support volunteer boards, interested citizens, developers, state legislators and all those interested in seeing smart growth policies become on-the-ground solutions.
If your community is struggling with a planning, zoning or policy issue, we may be able to help through our Community Planning Partnership. Launched in 2006, we have already partnered with communities around the state.
While many of our land use decisions are made at the local level, Vermont is a state where the framework for land use decisions is a product of state policy. Smart Growth Vermont is an active participant in state policy, working to ensure that state legislation, programs, and investments promote smart growth.
We also know Vermonters need to see how public and private sectors have collaborated to create housing, strengthen local businesses and preserve farms and forests. Our Smart Growth Awards highlight the creative and successful Vermont projects that embody the benefits of this approach.
Interested in knowing more about how you can support those who maintain our rural, working landscape? Check out our Communities and the Land publication.
There is power in knowledge. In order to keep our partners, members and the community informed, we offer a monthly e-newsletter, a bi-annual newsletter, how-to guides, and a variety of publications to help you learn about and implement smart growth projects and policies.
We coordinate the Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative, a group of ten highly respected organizations working together to shape and implement smart growth policies and practices around the state. The Collaborative also provides a Housing Endorsement for projects that meet established smart growth criteria.
Healthy Neighborhoods/Healthy Kids Program
Smart Growth Vermont has also engaged youth in community planning and revitalization activities. From 2002 to 2004, Smart Growth Vermont partnered with Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project on the Healthy Neighborhoods/ Healthy Kids program. Through this innovative program, we worked with 4th and 5th graders in the Burlington school district to draw connections between the design of their communities and impacts on their health. Shelburne Farms has integrated the project into their programs, and has published a Healthy Neighborhoods/Healthy Kids Handbook – a Vermont Education standards-based teachers guide for using this project in other Vermont schools.
The goals of HN/HK are to connect people with the natural and built environment in which they live, to improve the health and safety of neighborhoods, and to instill in participants the knowledge and experience that they can make a positive contribution to their own health and that of their community.
Portions of the Healthy Neighborhoods/Healthy Kids Handbook can be viewed below. If you would like to order a copy, please visit the Shelburne Farms Education Resources page of their website.