Windham Regional Commission

No invitation is necessary to participate in any meeting of the Windham Regional Commission.  In fact, the monthly meeting of the Full Commission is specifically designed with topics of interest to the larger public in mind.  Topics covered during the last few months have included state and regional transportation issues, workforce development, affordable housing, regional economic development, and the region’s forests and forestry.

As part of the Southern Vermont Recovery Project, a series of workshops are being held throughout Southern Vermont to provide tools, tricks and knowledge to make village and downtowns more resilient through revitalization.  The second workshop is:

Organization and Public-Private Partnerships
Thursday, June 20, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Brattleboro Selectboard Meeting Room

Windham Regional Commission (WRC) is pleased to announce the following grants and loans from the Windham Region Brownfields Reuse Initiative- Cleanup Revolving Loan Fund (WRBRI-RLF).  A total of $272,266 will be made available to Deerfield Valley Transit Association (MOOVER), Main Street Arts and Bellows Falls Historical Society to provide resources to help them with the clean up of their Brownfield properties. 

The Windham Regional Commission (WRC) and Commonwealth Dairy are proud to announce that the Commonwealth Dairy project was honored at the Phoenix Awards ceremony during Brownfields 2013 in Atlanta, GA, May 16, 2013. Created in 1997, this prestigious award honors individuals and groups working to solve critical environmental or social challenges, transforming blighted and contaminated areas into productive new uses, and sustainable development projects.  The Phoenix Award winners represent outstanding Brownfield projects from each of the 10 EPA regions.

On Tuesday, May 29^th the Windham Regional Commission and the Southern Windsor County Regional Planning Commission held the Spring Regional Energy Round Table in Bellows Falls Vermont.  The event was well attended, with representation from eight Windham Region Towns: Brattleboro, Grafton, Londonderry, Marlboro, Newfane, Rockingham, Wilmington, and Windham.   The topic of the evening was financing models for municipal energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

Windham Regional Commission (WRC), working in collaboration with Marlboro College’s Center for Creative Solutions (CCS), is one of 817 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. WRC will be awarded a $40,000 grant to support a creative planning process with the town of Londonderry.

The VT Energy Generation Siting Policy Commission has released its report detailing its recommendations. Among the recommendations are robust regional and municipal energy siting planning, which can lead to greater standing of plans in the Section 248 process.  I strongly encourage everyone interested in this issue to read the report in its entirety, including the dissenting opinion from Siting Commission member Louise McCarren.  The report and minority opinion are available here. Thanks to the members of the Siting Commission for their hard work on a challenging subject.

WRC Natural Resources Committee hosted on April 18 their third forum in an ongoing series to bring together conservation minded people in our region to network and learn. The Spring 2013 topic covered two main topics on Forestry.  Graduate students from the Conway School presented their research from last winter, where they collected stories from local foresters, and ideas and data to tell the story of cultural, economic, and conservation values of the working forest landscape of the Windham Region.

Ever wonder what this person is doing? A Traffic Count!!!

What is a traffic count? It is a study done on a particular road to collect data on vehicles moving through a particular segment of road. The study collects the volume of vehicles, their speed, and their type (e.g., motorcycle, passenger car, bus, etc.).

Windham Regional Commission (WRC) and Bennington County Regional Commission (BCRC), along with our correlating Regional Development Corporations, the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) and the Bennington County Industrial Corporation applied for and received funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration Disaster Recovery Grant program.  An important part of this work is to bring added professional capacity to Southern Vermont to assist with economic recovery post Tropical Storm Irene.

The WRC recently completed an update to the guidance document Weatherizing Town Buildings:  What Local Officials and Energy Committees Need to Know.  This 2013 update provides energy use results for seven of the nine weatherization retrofits completed, providing regional examples of both energy and cost savings realized through completion of these weatherization projects.  The WRC was able to compile this document through state Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) funding, in addition to the many successful weatherizations completed with this grant. 

In November 2012, a public meeting was held in Wilmington to discuss the impacts of traffic at the Route 9, Route 100 intersection.  Following that public meeting, the WRC compiled a report on the input collected through both comments made during the meeting, and comment sheets collected after the meeting.  This report is meant to assist the town of Wilmington and VTrans in their future decision making process with regards to traffic improvements.  The report is now available in a PDF version below.  Please contact Matt Mann at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (ext 120) or Cullen Meves at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (ext 108) if you have any questions about the report.

Rt 9/Rt 100 Intersection Report (1.2MB PDF)

As part of the information gathering process for the Regional Profile update, the WRC collected current available U.S. Census and American Community Survey data for each of the 27 towns that it represents.  The data was collected for broad catagories of analysis pertaining to population, economics, housing, and transportation.  In most cases, the data was collected from the 2010 Census figures, but in some cases more recent data was available.  The raw data collected is available in Excel or PDF format for any towns wishing to obtain this information.  Please contact Cullen Meves at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (802) 257-4547 ext. 108.