Making Towns More Sustainable by Incorporating Metrics in the Town Plan

Abstract

Vermont towns are required to have a town plan. The responsibility of the town planning department, the plan is comprehensive and details the current state of the town and embodies the residents’ vision of the town’s future. Town plans should be compatible with the plans of neighboring towns, progress towards the plan goals are to be measurable.A problem with the town plans, referred to as the Comprehensive Town Plan (CTP), is the minimal use of metrics. The metrics are often an ad-hoc collection of available metrics and lack compatibility with the plans of other towns. Establishing a set of consistent and defined metrics, used by all towns, will solve this problem. Metrics will also make the CTP easier for the town to develop and stakeholders to understand. Such metrics have twice solved similar problems. Corporate annual reports benefit from the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) procedures and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) form 10-K; Corporate Responsibility reports more recently benefited from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).Several sources of metrics and methods are evaluated. Metrics currently used by the CTP and those recommended by practitioners of the CTP is the first source of metrics. As the CTP is similar to a sustainability plan, sustainability frameworks such as the GRI, Sustainability Tools for Assessing and Rating communities (STAR), and International Standards Organization (ISO) 37120 are reviewed. The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Insights™ is also considered.