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Town of Bennington 1998 Annual Report

BENNINGTON COUNTY REGIONAL COMMISSION

Bennington County Regional Commission (BCRC) Officers, elected for FY'99, include Charles Yoder, Chairman; Roy Johnson, Vice Chairman; Suzanne dePeyster, Secretary; and Robert Hartwell, Treasurer. BCRC's representative to the VT Economic Progress Council is Ralph Colin, and to the VT Downtown Development Board is Leonard Cohen. Three Commission meetings focused on land use including sprawl, downtowns, and a two part program building on the Orton Foundation video, "Change and Challenge: Vermonters at Work." The latter will be available as a two part video showing on the public access stations in the Northshire and Southshire. The messages in the videos are fundamental to the work of both municipal and regional planners.

Municipal technical assistance was provided in several areas: plans, bylaws, health ordinance, amendments, interpretations, administrative procedures and other special requests. Municipalities will be asked to support a resolution approved by the Commission to increase the State's municipal and regional planning fund to match the responsibilities of the local and regional planning programs. The resolution concludes with a quote from Marshail McLuhan, "There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening."

BCRC prepared and distributed a draft model b;ylaw for wireless structures. Several towns took advantage of BCRC's cost sharing offer to purchase the "Vermont Municipal Guide to Land Use Regulation," May, 1998. The guide is a helpful resource for municipal boards. Each town receives the "Planning Commissioners Journal" quarterly. BCRC is working with the Bennington County Natural Resource District and Conservation Service with GIS natural resource mapping. Bennington County is one of six counties without 1:5,000 digital orthophotos. Orthophotos have a broad application and benefit for public works facilities, transportation, land use, emergency response and site evaluations, land development and marketing, displaying visual information, viewing resources, 3-D visualizations, visualizing change, and its availability expands its use to those with a PC.

Several meetings were co-sponsored with the Agency of Transportation to obtain public opinion and input on transportation policy and project development. The Commission adopted a position paper on rail service in the region and will advocate improvements when service is upgraded on the Western side of the State. A paper was also previously prepared for the Bennington Bypass projects. Coordination and assistance is also provided for a number of local transportation projects and the concerns/needs for new projects were recorded in anticipation of ultimate submission to AOT.

The land use, transportation, and economic elements of the Regional Plan are under preparation. BCRC is participating in and providing support services for several economic initiatives. These include a comprehensive thematic data base for the "So Vermont" web site, industrial-commercial data base, data publications, socio-economic indicators of change, and ensuring a close fit between municipal and regional economic policy directions and priorities. Regional commissions throughout the state are becoming more active in emergency management programs and federal requirements involving natural disasters as well as hazmat incidents.

Respectfully submitted,
Charles Yoder, Chairman		      Respectfully submitted,
Gregory Burke, Executive Director


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