ORCA Pod Vermont Zoning Atlas (VTZA)
Repo: https://github.com/VERSO-UVM/VT_Zoning_Atlas
Tasks: https://github.com/orgs/VERSO-UVM/projects/2
UVM Research Partner: Yoshi Bird
The Vermont Zoning Atlas is a web-based geospatial interface that visualizes zoning code distributions across all of Vermont. Zoning rules can present barriers to effective city planning, impairing our ability to achieve important policy objectives like community desegregation, climate change resiliency, transportation access, homelessness relief, and affordable housing development. The Vermont Zoning Atlas seeks to democratize researchers’, policymakers’, advocates’, and everyday citizens’ understanding of zoning regulations and enable apples-to-apples cross-jurisdiction comparisons through a methodology developed by our partner, the National Zoning Atlas. Without this tool, one would have to read thousands of pages of dense legal code to answer simple questions – this is why we believe our tool will democratize zoning policy and make it possible for advocates and researchers to identify barriers to things like affordable housing development, climate resiliency, and community desegregation more quickly.
In the News: Housing Forward Virginia – Zoning Atlases Across the Map: Vermont, August 24, 2023
Join the Effort
WE ARE HIRING! Look in JobX for opportunities to join!
Partnerships
The project is in collaboration with the following
- Vermont state Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD)
- Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD)
- Vermont Association of Planning and Development Agencies (VAPDA)
- Vermont Center for Geographic Information (VCGI)
- Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA)
- Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO)
- Fair Housing Project
- Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition (VAHC)
- UVM’s Open Source Program Office (VERSO)
- University of Vermont Gund Institute
- Middlebury College Geography Department
Roles and Tasks
Job Duties/Responsibilities:
- Reviews and compares zoning by-laws and land use rules for each jurisdiction in Vermont
- Catalogs the attributes of each district’s rules according to the National Zoning Atlas methodology, including identifying jurisdictional and district information, dimensional standards, and due process requirements
- Enters data into the National Zoning Atlas Editor workspace for review and joining with GIS file
GIS duties:
- Accesses open-source zoning district geoJSONs
- Performs topology checks to find and correct invalid geometries and boundary issues (e.g., overlapping base districts, polygons drawn outside jurisdictional boundaries, gaps/slivers between base districts)
- Merges non-continuous district polygons into multi-polygons
- Georeferences an existing geoJSON against the official zoning map .pdf to ensure accuracy of district boundaries
- Manually creates zoning district files where none exist
- Updates attribute tables with required columns according to the National Zoning Atlas methodology
- Reports any complications, problems, or questions to the Project Director for technical assistance
Team
We are in the process of hiring
Look at JobX for listings or CatCoderss