Rockingham Moves Forward with Incremental Development Working Group
At the end of May, the Incremental Development Alliance and the Town of Rockingham met virtually for their Wrap Up Call. This meeting was the culmination of 5 months of technical assistance. The Town of Rockingham engaged the Incremental Development Alliance (IncDev), with support from the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation’s Southern Vermont Economy Project and other sponsors. IncDev is a non-profit alliance of practitioners that helps identify where policies and practices are unnecessary barriers and partners with local organizations to improve the financial and regulatory ecosystem for small development projects. IncDev has helped Rockingham understand how their regulations can be improved to increase the “friendliness” to small scale developers, provided spot test examples of certain building forms that make sense in Rockingham/Bellows Falls, as well as provided an in-depth Target Market Analysis to understand the demand the town is missing out on.
You can view all recorded presentations and documents at https://brattleborodevelopment.com/incdev-rockingham/ The Town of Rockingham has also put up all of the presentations and materials on their webpage: https://www.rockinghamvt.org/inc-dev-working-group-resources
Interested actors from the town have created the Rockingham Incremental Development Working Group (RIDWG) to move forward on the actions suggested by IncDev. People that make up the group are property owners and landlords, business owners, local officials, town staff, and concerned residents. This group meets monthly to tackle questions on incremental development in their town. Their goal is to move from “Somebody oughta” to “Damn it, do it!” by using the knowledge they learned during the IncDev technical assistance process and undertake specific issues that are making it difficult for sale scale development to happen in town.
Join us for our next meeting on July 28th at 3:30 pm at the Waypoint Center in Bellows Falls. Each meeting we leave with action items to complete, to move the town one step closer to vibrancy and strong neighborhoods.
RSVP to July 28th Meeting: https://forms.gle/rdhZiBc9ondqgt7V8
Funding for IDA Technical Assistance
IncDev Technical Assistance to Rockingham was made possible through funding by local and statewide organizations. Support from BDCC’s Southern Vermont Economy Project (funded through USDA RCDI) is matched by contributions from the Vermont Council on Rural Development, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Preservation Trust of Vermont, Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, and Vermont Community Foundation.
About the Southern Vermont Economy Project 2.0:
The Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation’s Southern Vermont Economy Project provides training and technical assistance to increase local capacity, skills, and resources in order to advance local projects critical to Southern Vermont achieving community, economic, and workforce development goals. In its second round of funding by the USDA Rural Community Development Initiative, SVEP 2.0 partners include; the Towns of Rockingham, Brattleboro and Bennington; the Windham Regional Commission; Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies; Bennington County Regional Commission; Bennington County Industrial Corporation; Readsboro Hometown Redevelopment Inc.; and Bellows Falls Area Development Corporation. For more information please visit: https://brattleborodevelopment.com/svep/
