GUILFORD-In January, Vermont's Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) announced the awarding of just over $1 million in municipal planning grants across 47 cities, towns, and villages.
Intended to "support local planning and community revitalization initiatives," these grants provide state funding for updating zoning bylaws and town plans, conducting feasibility studies, and planning for infrastructure and development.
The recipients included the town of Guilford, which was awarded $30,000 to explore and develop its first land-use bylaws, and the DHCD characterized it as a model project.
But that grant was ultimately rescinded.
What went wrong?
Continuing conversations
According to Jenni Lavoie, DHCD's administrative services manager for community planning and revitalization and administrator of the state's Municipal Planning Grant Program for the last 10 years, the decision came after Guilford requested to remove the bylaw development component from its proposed project.
"Because the grant was awarded specifically to support the creation of bylaws, the [DHCD] could not fund a project that no longer included that work," she says.
Regional planning commissions often assist members of local planning commissions in crafting these grant proposals, especially in sparsely populated rural towns like Guilford. In this case, Jeannette Tokarz, chair of the town's planning commission, wrote the application for the grant in conjunction with the Windham Regional Commission (WRC).
Community outreach by the planning commission in recent years had generated the goal of continuing conversations about what Guilford residents most valued and how they might best protect and preserve those aspects of the town.
Tokarz was looking for structured ways to do so when she first learned of the opportunity to apply for a municipal planning grant and found that materials on the DHCD's website for the program emphasized community engagement.
"In my mind, perhaps erroneously," she says, "this was really all about community engagement."
Per the Guilford Town Plan, residents "envision a town that maintains its rural character, protects its natural resources, and provides viable living, education, and economic opportunities to sustain [them] well into the 21st century."
The question of how Guilford might implement this vision has guided Tokarz's work as the town's Planning Commission chair since she first assumed the position.
In a presentation hosted by the commission in 2023, Matt Bachler, senior planner of the Windham Regional Commission, discussed regulatory tools that could enable Guilford to realize that vision.
Zoning regulations, he explained, are the most common tool used to regulate land use and development in Vermont - more than 80% of Vermont towns have zoning bylaws to regulate land use. Guilford is not among them.
Though zoning was used in the early 20th century largely to separate land for industrial use from residential properties, Bachler asserted that modern technology tends to make this incompatibility of uses a bit of a moot point. In the present day, he said, zoning is more often used to preserve character, with a focus on aesthetics and landscaping.
In the eyes of the planning commission, a municipal planning grant would offer the opportunity to expand upon community dialogue and further explore the preservation of Guilford's character through land use regulation.
The grant funds would cover the costs of technical assistance from professional planners at the Windham Regional Commission as well as the various steps in the process of bringing any bylaws to a vote should they be proposed during the project. Per state statute, these steps include mandatory public hearings to be held by the Selectboard and the Planning Commission prior to voting, as well as a written report to be produced by the town planning commission.
Regional planning commissions commonly assist members of local planning commissions in crafting these grant proposals, especially in towns of Guilford's size, and Bachler assisted Tokarz.
In accordance with the application process, Tokarz informed the Guilford Selectboard of the grant program and application at the board's Feb. 10, 2025 meeting, and the Selectboard voted unanimously to approve the application submission March 10, 2025.
Close, but not close enough
The grant was not awarded on the town's first try, but Tokarz received helpful feedback to improve the application for a future round. She again worked with WRC to integrate the feedback and revise the application for resubmission.
The approval for submission of the revised application was brought before the Selectboard Oct. 27, 2025.
The project proposed developing what could become the town's first zoning bylaw by defining a process that would incorporate a variety of outreach to residents.
At this time, Selectboard members Chip Carter and Tara Cheney expressed reservations, wondering why state funding would be needed for community engagement and whether the grant would obligate the town to adopt zoning bylaws.
Tokarz explained that the funding would cover the cost of technical assistance from professional planners and that to her knowledge, the grant could not obligate the town to adopt bylaws.
The Selectboard remained divided on the issue.
"I would have liked to have had the grant [application] to read tonight, to see what the verbiage is," said Cheney. "I feel like we should have more conversation about this for questions instead of [having] a motion to vote."
However, the Nov. 3, 2025 deadline for submission of the grant application preceded the board's next meeting, requiring that a decision be made there and then. Ultimately, the selectboard voted 3-1 to approve the application submission with the contingency that the grant carry no obligation to create and adopt bylaws.
This time around, the application was not only successful but "essentially tied for first place" among five successful applications in the Windham region, according to Jenni Lavoie, administrative services manager for community planning and revitalization at the DHCD and administrator of Vermont's Municipal Planning Grant program for the last 10 years.
"Reviewers specifically commented on Guilford developing their first bylaw, the extensive public outreach proposed, and the fact that Guilford was utilizing our program's brand-new no-required-match by the town for developing their first bylaw," she said, meaning that the town would not have to contribute to ("match") funding the effort.
"Our department was excited [by] the opportunity to showcase this project and award as a potential model for other communities," Lavoie said.
But when it came time for the Guilford Selectboard to accept the awarded grant, opinions were once again mixed.
Selectboard member Sheila Morse commended Tokarz. "I know that these municipal planning grants are few and far between, and we finally got one," she said. "Kudos to you for getting to this point."
Other members found the grant language and breakdown of the budget offputting.
As written, the budget allocated $7,000 for meetings and public workshops. The remaining $23,000 would be devoted to preparing, drafting, and publicly presenting zoning bylaws and a zoning map, with public hearings to be held by the Selectboard and planning commission and WRC serving as consultant.
"I really feel like I didn't get the information that [the grant] was to talk about zoning, and then we have $23,000 that's basically about zoning and then let's vote on it. Am I wrong here?" asked Cheney.
Tokarz said that while she had done all of the narrative work of the grant in consultation with WRC, the budget document had been put together by WRC staff.
"It's disappointing that it doesn't reflect the way that we conceive of this process moving forward," said Tokarz. However, "that budget was never intended to be the road map we would follow. That budget was to justify the amount of money we were requesting from the state."
"What I'd like to do," Tokarz said, "is meet with our consultant, go through this budget [...] and rework the language and the vision and come back to the Selectboard."
The board agreed and unanimously passed a motion to amend the grant's language to better emphasize community engagement, input, and education and to hold a special meeting to vote on whether to accept the grant prior to Jan. 24, the deadline to do so.
However, as Town Administrator Erika Elder learned when she reached out to Lavoie regarding the changes, the grant application could not be amended. The Selectboard would have to vote on the grant as written.
The vote, however, turned out to be a non-issue. In fact, the request to remove the bylaw development component was enough to cause the state to lose faith in the proposed project.
At a special meeting held for the purpose of voting on Jan. 23, Lavoie informed the Selectboard of the state's decision to rescind the grant.
"We no longer have confidence that this grant award will lead to a successful outcome and would be a good use of taxpayer funds," she said.
"Because the grant was awarded specifically to support the creation of bylaws, the [DHCD] could not fund a project that no longer included that work," Lavoie told The Commons. She notes that rescinding this kind of grant is uncommon but declined to comment further on precedent.
What happens next?
Tokarz said Guilford's planning commission wants to move forward in a dialogue around land-use planning at a time when Vermont is undergoing a sea change in its regulatory framework, she says.
Recent years have seen the passing of several significant pieces of legislation regarding land-use planning in efforts to meet housing demands and realize the state's vision of, per state statute, "an ecologically functional landscape that sustains biodiversity, maintains landscape connectivity, supports watershed health, promotes climate resilience, supports working farms and forests, provides opportunities for recreation and appreciation of the natural world, and supports the historic settlement pattern of compact villages surrounded by rural lands and natural areas."
These pieces of legislation include the HOME Act in 2023, and Act 181 in 2024, the latter of which is considered one of the most significant - and controversial - overhauls to date of Act 250, which has served as the centerpiece of state land-use regulation in Vermont since its passing in 1970.
Though Guilford is not currently facing extreme development pressure, Bachler notes that it is often not possible to put measures in place once development is underway.
He added that towns that lack zoning, like Guilford, tend to have less ability to align future development to their community goals outlined in their respective town plans.
And for the state's part, Lavoie encouraged Guilford to apply again for this or other eligible projects once a consensus can be reached about the best path forward for the town.
Lily Hohn has served The Commons as a journalism intern from Greenfield Community College.
This News item was submitted to The Commons.