COMMUNITY PLANNING PARTNERSHIP:
Town of Pownal
- Photo courtesy Carl Villanueva
The Town of Pownal is the gateway to southwestern Vermont. Situated at the junction of two highways, a railroad, and a river, it was for many years a small but thriving center of commerce and manufacturing. In recent years, though, almost all of the major employers have shut their doors, leaving the town with a rich history but a weakened economic base.
Among the most visible of the closures was that of the Green Mountain Race Track, which shut down in 1992. The track sat mostly empty for a dozen years until commercial developers purchased it in 2004 with the goal of converting it into a large mixed-use development with "green" industries, homes, and storefronts. The town welcomed the proposed investment, but gave high priority from the start to ensuring that any redevelopment at the racetrack complement and strengthen the existing villages and the town as a whole.
WHAT'S NEW...
The second community meeting for the Pownal growth center project will be held on November 20 at 6:00 PM in the elementary school gym. The project team will present a conceptual plan and map for the proposed growth center.
The first Pownal newsletter is available online. It provides an overview of the growth center application process and discusses the benefits for communities.
In order to address these issues, town leaders decided in 2007 to explore the possibility of applying for growth center designation, a state program that provides significant regulatory incentives for communities that revise their town plans and bylaws to promote compact, mixed-use development in and around their historic downtowns or village centers. In 2008, the Town selected Smart Growth Vermont (a nonprofit organization that helps communities plan for growth) and LandWorks (a land use planning firm based in Middlebury) to assist the community with the growth center application process.