Hate that I felt the need to warn my intern, an aspiring Boston-area planner, about the frequency of traffic violence deaths among transportation planners earlier this week.

I may be extraordinarily biased but downtown Bennington couldn’t be in better hands. www.benningtonbanner.com/local-news/b...

My my wife’s grandmother was one of the leaders of the effort to build this school after the previous one burned down. Turns out the guy was right, but early. The tax base was not enough to support desired school investments long term, but it will have taken about 90 years to prove it.

Idaho 🤝 Vermont Identity built around mountains and specific agricultural product

Infrastructure nerd level: Marveling at the Boise DPW’s use of craggy, igneous stabilization stone in bridge projects, which should improve erosion control while lowering crushing and trucking costs. This rock product is entirely unavailable back east.

Unexpectedly pulling together a paper on regionalization of EMS services. Certainly a service that works best when county governments are involved, so the best option seems to be channel the Bloomington School economists and pray the solution is viable.

Mixed reaction on the scoping study but… We’re finally building the sidewalk I’ve been working on for 6 years. The children of Arlington will be able to safely walk from school to the park after 70 years.

Bike/ped double tonight: 6 pm to seek approval for scoping a new bike path in one town, then 7 pm 10 miles north to award a new sidewalk, in person.

E24-24, my proposal to raise the IBC’s single-stair apartment building height limit from three stories to four, has passed the final membership vote, and will now officially make it into the 2027 IBC 🎉

Local land use reform long gaming my town of 2500. 2022-23: As town admin, got grant to modernize zoning bylaw 2026-27: As regional planner, got grant to personally rewrite town plan as contractor, improve land use element. 2028-29: Volunteer technical assistance to further add housing capacity.

I'm serving as a guest editor of a Cityscape Symposium on pro-housing reforms with Nathan Bossie and Leah Lozier of HUD. We're interested in studies that examine the effectiveness of policy changes in: ✅ zoning ✅ permit processes ✅ building codes ✅ impact fees ✅ housing finance

Campaign season: Golden Dome-ing

Campaign season: back with the local Dems to support the Thomas West campaign

Campaign season. Excited to be in Essex Junction to support the Ashley Bartley senate campaign

New training from me: Tools for implementing local plans Slides: www.bcrcvt.org/uploads/1/1/... Video bcrcvermont.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/compan...

Analysis by Aaron Shroyer and coauthors finds that USPS land could accommodate 237,000 residential units through mixed-use post offices. Many people are saying this is some of the best-positioned federal land for reducing housing undersupply @zaiac.bsky.social @mnolangray.bsky.social

Legs more sore from the next morning from 20 minutes on a trampoline than 90 minutes of climbing on the bike.

Excellent venue for talking about planning in an adaptive reused church/concert space

Last half hour of bidding for the sidewalk I’ve been working on for *checks watch* 6 years.

Happy to join the VT Walk Bike Summit to talk about conceptual bike/ped planning today

About to submit for review my regional plan housing element, codifying regional support for single stair/build code reform, which would be a first in VT planning.

Come join my team! We're hiring an Analyst to join AV's housing team. This is a great opportunity for early-career folks interested in the pro-housing ecosystem to support philanthropic investments, advocacy, and policy engagement. Details below: www.arnoldventures.org/careers/infr...

Sidewalk project in my town I’ve worked on for 6 years is finally going to bid. Time to pray to the infrastructure gods that someone wants to build it on budget

Was pleased to attend the VT Capital Planning Forum in Burlington today. [Obligatory lake Champlain cremee.]

Had to tell my friend he can’t buy some land from his neighbor to build a garage because of lot size minimums. 😢

New filtering study, housing needs: uhero.hawaii.edu/the-housing-...

Taught future loggers how to capital plan this morning. While they may not teach these skills in normal high school, the tech centers, at their best, absolutely are

5-15 minute PRs atop the Mur de Huy. Turns out I should’ve been fueling with waffles and maple syrup all these years.

I wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post with Allie Cannington – at The Kelsey, a disability-forward affordable housing developer – about how America's elevator accessibility rules backfire for small buildings, and about how a clarification from HUD could fix it www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Thank you to Liberty Fund for inviting me to Texas for a a few days of lively discussions of the American Dream.

Not one but two structure of government articles at town meeting in my neighboring towns came down to a single vote. Certainly validates that both elected vs appointed treasurers and Australian ballot budgets have merits on both sides

Water department laborer and government accountant does kinda conveniently add up to infrastructure-focused public official and regional planner.

Single-stair gets the New York Times treatment. @holz-bau.bsky.social reminds us why they call the last line the kicker: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/b... (gift link)

Newly-elected millennial Select Board member is planning to feed ~200,000 words worth of my reports into an AI to help the town govern as they still haven't hired a replacement a year later. Strong opinion that town admin/managers should keep detailed activity logs to aid continuity of operations.

Set up my bike trainer again and the toddler has decided he's now a personal trainer urging "bike" every few minutes.

Here is Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey's executive order creating a technical advisory group to study the issue of single-stair buildings taller than the state's current three-story height limit. A report is due within one year, and the Center for Building will be one of the TAG's members.

Government of the Norman Rockwell town has been run by a former Olympic biathlete for a number of years, which indeed feels very American

Landgrove Mentioned!!!

Just polished off the draft of the regional plan housing element. Beyond the extremely aggressive state-proscribed housing targets (~50% net increase in 25 years), lots of new institutional positions and unwinding past policy mistakes. Highlights to come once the draft goes public.

In our family's political news of the morning, my lovely wife Ali has joined as treasurer of Lt. Gov John Rodgers' reelection campaign. More detail at the link: www.facebook.com/share/p/19HD...

Preparing to potentially open the emergency shelter for the first time in 3 years and my first as town Emergency Management Director. Thoughts going out to small town EMD peers in the south where the ice will have conditions much worse.

Maximalist mapping of Tier 1B areas has been recommended forward by the North Bennington Planning Commission and will be put the village trustees in 3 weeks. It's a small victory of VT planner gobbledygook, but one expected to facilitate meaningful amounts of new housing in SWVT.

Met with my old employer and they're still recruiting for my old role as Town Administrator in Arlington, VT. $70k, no existing government experience required. Random benefits include CDL training and ability to train to run heavy machinery (as well as literally running the town).

Back at the renovation and hoo boy little beats the catharsis of removing old cast iron piping and replacing it with modern plastic that goes in in just a few minutes.

Pro-housing voices from the right of center are increasingly focused on a "we need housing For Families" framing. In a new column I explain why broad-based liberalization, especially for inexpensive types of housing, is important for helping people start families: www.governing.com/urban/to-sup...

I don’t know what to make of this, but the group that usually pushes back against greater use of wood in buildings (whether mass timber, ordinary light wood frame, for fire-treated light wood frame) at the ICC hearings is the concrete industry. The firefighters have nothing to say about it.

Local governments own a lot of stuff, paid for with taxpayer dollars, yet asset management is an often-overlooked management function.

I'd settle for a federal ban on historic review for sidewalk projects.

I both agree with this and also point out that the average local government has under 100 employees, total—a number skewed upward by teachers and cops. The median number of local government employees per government is 3. Drowning is an understatement.

Love this new report on buildings' relative fire safety from @alexhrwtz.bsky.social and Pew colleagues. www.pew.org/en/research-...