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-...

Headed to Peru (,VT, population 531) to revive consideration of its first sidewalk, 22 years after the proposal was first studied. This ROW was one of the most valuable toll roads in the country, connecting eastern and western VT, when first cut from the frontier in the 1700s.

There's lots of cool survey data in @bobbyfijan.bsky.social and @lymanstoneky.bsky.social's new report on family-friendly apartments. Most surprising to me is the parents do not place a huge premium on a short commute compared to non-parents. ifstudies.org/report-brief...

Newer apartments are SIX TIMES safer from fire deaths than older housing, and FOUR TIMES safer from fire than even new detached houses. www.pew.org/en/research-...

Did a “How to use state GIS resources for forestry” class for the local tech center. Warning, exposure of young people LiDAR may cause unpredictable results.

This and undercapitalized utilities are the greatest municipal problems towns face moving forward

Sep 16, 1977: Canada Post issues a 12-cent stamp—the cost of mailing a letter in 1977—honouring Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915). The stamp depicted a train crossing one of the Fleming-designed bridges on the Intercolonial Railway. 1/2

Today, the Center for Building published “Beyond Zoning” by John Zeanah, Memphis’s Chief of Development and Infrastructure. He chronicles the non-zoning barriers faced by Malone Commons, a low-rise multifam/mixed-use project, and how they worked through them www.centerforbuilding.org/publication/...

Bike planning while watching the Vuelta. Zero regrets leaving town administration to become a planner.

New from me, a summary of Montana's recent housing policy wins, which are nearly as impressive as the 2023 Montana Miracle: www.governing.com/urban/what-m...

Went to see progress on Bennington’s new bike bridge this morning

Happy Bennington Battle Day (observed) to those who celebrate! [mostly just state employees and those of governments of southern Bennington county]

Family first tonight, hosting a public meeting in which two plans were approved from our dining room.

It me and the town highway department

When you can’t decide whether to go to bed.