As increasing numbers of Vermonters voice concern about the spreading of commercial and residential development across the countryside, it is important to clearly compare the costs of suburban versus downtown development.
Nobody builds on the edge of downtown because they hate downtown.
The Montpelier conference was co-sponsored by the Vermont Forum on Sprawl along with 12 business, housing, jobs and municipal associations and the state's Downtown Program. To prepare this report, the fifth in a series, the Vermont Forum on Sprawl combined information from the conference with data gathered from appraisers, developers, regulatory officials and others involved with recent or planned developments in both downtown and suburban Vermont locations. The pages that follow summarize what this research found. These comparisons clearly show that, if Vermont policy makers wish to encourage more growth in our traditional urban and village centers, the regulatory and cost factors that currently make downtown development more expensive must be addressed.