Creating growth center legislation to protect farmland.

• Position: Vermont - Brief Article

CLF is working with the Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative to promote development in identified growth centers, thereby avoiding sprawl and protecting Vermont's agricultural and rural resources. CLF sees this as an opportunity to avoid environmental degradation and instead put in place effective smart growth practices. Sprawl has been steadily increasing in Vermont us farm fields outside of town have sprouted malls and subdivisions instead of hay.

CLF and the Collaborative successfully defeated a bill in the Vermont Legislature that would have significantly weakened Vermont's famous land use law, known us Act 250. The bill would have removed important protections for agricultural resources--protections CLF helped build based on prior CLF Act 250 victories. The dairy farms and open fields that characterize the Vermont countryside provide a bulwark against shopping malls and big box retail centers.

But with CLF and...