Our Upper Valley planners quarterly gathering was hosted by Norwich yesterday. Great chili made by Phil and amazing lemon tart provided by Woodstock’s Michael Brands – it was all delicious.
We shared war stories. Talked about development activity (or lack thereof); and the status of land use projects (Norwich adopted new zoning in Dec. & continues to work on MP update, Woodstock’s also working on new zoning (1500′ ridgeline protection) including significant protections for vernal pools and vernal pool clusters and new stormwater regs, UVLSRPC is out straight writing grants & gearing up for the Intermodal Transit Site Feasibility study & GIS activity, Enfield & Dartmouth are doing stuff, etc…)
Our lunchtime gathering ended on the topic of technology. Woodstock has been using these slower months to re-do their town website which should be launched in the next week or two. Norwich had Valley Net redo their sit. UVLSRPC met with their webmasters to improve their site. Enfield uses their site extensively for posting agendas and minutes and all other planning documents. In addition to websites, we discussed email use, blogs & social networking programs to reach out to the masses. Sign up for Twitter and you can get the latest and greatest in Norwich planning by signing up for NorwichPlanning (is that right Phil?) My blog isn’t that fascinating but you’re all welcome to check it out here.
We also spent time talking about GIS. UVLSRPC will be hosting a GIS workshop on Wednesday, April 22 at the Howe at 7 pm (Rachel agreed to send the info. to the VT folks & perhaps you could share the details with this email list too).