By Lisa Loomis
The Mad River Valley Planning District (MRVPD)recently published its 2023 Year in Review which provides an overview of the district’s work last year, as well as historical insights and fun facts.
Here are some fun facts. MRVPD brought $1,394,091 in grants to The Valley in 2023, either through direct pursuit or through guidance and support to town officials or local entities. (Since 2009 grant monies total $5.6 million.)
The Mad River Valley Planning District was founded in 1985 when the towns of Warren, Waitsfield and Fayston were facing intense ski area development. The planning district includes the three towns, Sugarbush and the Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce. It is governed by a steering committee that includes a select board member and planning commissioner from each town and a voting representative from the chamber.
Among the 2023 highlights in the report was a January MRVPD partners meeting where planning partners and town officials and community partners came together to talk about the district’s almost four decades of work, and what should come next.
Early in 2023 the MRVPD steering committee committed its executive director Josh Schwartz to lead Waitsfield’s wastewater project coordination planning team through mid-march 2024. During that year Schwartz stewarded the project through preliminary engineering and on to the 30 final design phase. That project is ongoing.
Other notable projects this year included applying, for the third time, for funding from the Vermont Agency of Transportation’s (VTrans) Bicycle and Pedestrian Program for Warren's initiative to build a shared-use path adjacent to the Sugarbush Access Road. Warren, Mad River Path (MRP), Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission (CVRPC), Sugarbush Resort, and the MRVPD worked together to secure funding, receiving word in August that the first phase of the project had been funded at 80% or $769,280.
In October, at a steering committee meeting, Misha Golfman of the Mad River Path (MRP) provided a progress report on the VT-100 Multi-Use Path initiative launched earlier in the year. Golfman explained how he worked towards a coalition of support for phase one of the project and requested MRVPD support for phase two, the scoping study and phase three, implementation.
To begin phase two, the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission (CVRPC), MRP, and MRVPD applied to the VTrans Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) on December 8 for funding to assess the feasibility of a multi-use path along the VT-100 and VT-100B right-of-way from downtown Warren to the intersection of VT-100B and Hooper Lane in Moretown. Grant awards for that work are expected to be announced soon.
In 2023, the MRVPD continued its work helping local towns understand and quantify the impacts of short-term rentals, collecting quantitative and subjective data for its annual MRV Data Report as well as its community dashboard and wellness survey. To read the full report, visit https://mrvpd.org/annual-data-reports/
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