Nick Zaiac

To Support Families, Repair the Housing Ladder The cost of housing is one big barrier to family formation. But simply building more single family homes isn't the answer.

Pro-housing voices from the right of center are increasingly focused on a "we need housing For Families" framing.

In a new column I explain why broad-based liberalization, especially for inexpensive types of housing, is important for helping people start families: www.governing.com/urban/to-sup...

I don’t know what to make of this, but the group that usually pushes back against greater use of wood in buildings (whether mass timber, ordinary light wood frame, for fire-treated light wood frame) at the ICC hearings is the concrete industry. The firefighters have nothing to say about it.

Local governments own a lot of stuff, paid for with taxpayer dollars, yet asset management is an often-overlooked management function.

I'd settle for a federal ban on historic review for sidewalk projects.

I both agree with this and also point out that the average local government has under 100 employees, total—a number skewed upward by teachers and cops. The median number of local government employees per government is 3. Drowning is an understatement.

Love this new report on buildings' relative fire safety from @alexhrwtz.bsky.social and Pew colleagues.

www.pew.org/en/research-...

Vermont drought status from Green Mountain National Forest’s Hapgood Pond. Has become Hapgood Puddle. Brand new fishing pier at right

Headed to Peru (,VT, population 531) to revive consideration of its first sidewalk, 22 years after the proposal was first studied.

This ROW was one of the most valuable toll roads in the country, connecting eastern and western VT, when first cut from the frontier in the 1700s.

There's lots of cool survey data in @bobbyfijan.bsky.social and @lymanstoneky.bsky.social's new report on family-friendly apartments. Most surprising to me is the parents do not place a huge premium on a short commute compared to non-parents. ifstudies.org/report-brief...

Modern Multifamily Buildings Provide the Most Fire Protection A large body of research has demonstrated that apartment buildings and other types of multifamily housing can provide many benefits to a community, especially when built in high-demand areas where hou...

Newer apartments are SIX TIMES safer from fire deaths than older housing, and FOUR TIMES safer from fire than even new detached houses.
www.pew.org/en/research-...

Did a “How to use state GIS resources for forestry” class for the local tech center. Warning, exposure of young people LiDAR may cause unpredictable results.

This and undercapitalized utilities are the greatest municipal problems towns face moving forward

The 1977 12-cent Canadian stamp honouring Sir Sandford Fleming, featuring a portrait of Fleming as a young man superimposed on a drawing of a train crossing the Southwest Miramichi Bridge on the Intercolonial Railway, designed by Fleming in the early 1870s.

Sep 16, 1977: Canada Post issues a 12-cent stamp—the cost of mailing a letter in 1977—honouring Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915). The stamp depicted a train crossing one of the Fleming-designed bridges on the Intercolonial Railway. 1/2

Today, the Center for Building published “Beyond Zoning” by John Zeanah, Memphis’s Chief of Development and Infrastructure. He chronicles the non-zoning barriers faced by Malone Commons, a low-rise multifam/mixed-use project, and how they worked through them www.centerforbuilding.org/publication/...

Bike planning while watching the Vuelta. Zero regrets leaving town administration to become a planner.

What Montana Can Teach Us About Housing Reform Two years ago, lawmakers in the Big Sky State passed one of the most comprehensive state-level housing reform packages in the country. This year, they doubled down on their success.

New from me, a summary of Montana's recent housing policy wins, which are nearly as impressive as the 2023 Montana Miracle: www.governing.com/urban/what-m...

Went to see progress on Bennington’s new bike bridge this morning

Update: I spent it hanging out with my kid, bbqing, and shooting my sister-in-law’s AR-15. Usually not a gun person but, like any craft you don’t do, there’s beauty in spending time joining experienced hobbyists do what they love.

Happy Bennington Battle Day (observed) to those who celebrate! [mostly just state employees and those of governments of southern Bennington county]

Family first tonight, hosting a public meeting in which two plans were approved from our dining room.

Of all the random skills I picked up running a town, driving a road grader remains the most fun (fully regret not accepting the excavator training offer in hindsight)

It me and the town highway department

When you can’t decide whether to go to bed.

Wife works at the local tech HS. It's genuinely awesome to have prime access to nurses-to-be as babysitters and young loggers who will do gig chainsaw work.

Increasingly interested in transborder fire department mutual aid/coverage contracts after the recent fire in Stewartstown, VT

Today in Vermonting: Wife is currently driving the LT Governor around town in her school minivan

Playing connect the dots as a kid does indeed prepare you for rebuilding implies water line maps from hydrant data

Peak Infrastructure Week era Politico Morning Transportation playlist remains live and excellent: open.spotify.com/playlist/2mV...

"Tokyo and St. Petersburg required engineering feats on the scale of anything seen in the US. Amsterdam and Mexico City were literally built on top of water. Hong Kong and Rio de Janeiro were carved out of mountains.

Nothing about these cities is natural."

Absurd? Barbaric? Amateurish? All the most fun aspects of VT small town governance