The Vision: FAQ

What’s the Legacy Project vision?

[Message from Former Mayor Clavelle and the Legacy Project Steering Committee]

“The Burlington Legacy Project Action Plan provides a road map to a healthier tomorrow…Provides a blueprint for change for the economic, environmental, social, and cultural health of our community for generations to come…Working collaboratively with unit of purpose, we will achieve the healthy future detailed in this plan through the strong active involvement of all the city’s residents in governance and day-to-day decision-making. People from all sectors of our community must continue to strive together to make our collective vision a reality…This plan calls for carefully planned growth, it recognizes that we cannot abandon our commitment to the very things that make Burlington a special place in which to live, work, and raise our families. It affirms that growth can only happen together with a firm commitment to preserving our city’s physical and natural environment, maintaining open space, and strengthening the integrity and quality of life in our neighborhoods and families…Our commitment to the health and vitality of future generations begins with investing in greater educational, employment, social and recreational opportunities for the young people of today.”

What is an indicator?

An indicator is a form of data that after analyzing sheds light on a certain area, such as the economy, that is being evaluated. They help measure progress of projects or initiatives and show what needs to be worked on, what has been improving and what has stayed the same. The indicator process is very important because the Legacy Plan was built using specific indicators to measure progress of the five major themes: maintaining the economy, jobs, and housing, improving quality of life in neighborhoods, increasing participation in community decision-making, providing youth with high-quality education and life skills, and preserving environmental health. For example, indicators for the economy include “number of full-time Burlington workers earning above the livable wage” and “percent of population receiving food stamps.” The interlinking nature of indicators across categories also makes them vital in providing a holistic measurement of the Legacy Action Plan.

What are we trying to measure?

Ideally, indicators measure change over time. Therefore, any data from the start of the millennium, when the Action Plan started, to present is relevant in illustrating change over time in Burlington. Indicators that only contain data more recent data can still be used as supplementary information, however we are trying to measure our progress or lack there of in the Legacy Project’s Plan.

What is Legacy’s philosophy on sustainable community development?

The project prides itself on a comprehensive, integrated, and strategic community development philosophy that embraces the concerns and needs of all community stakeholders—residents, and non-profit, private and public entities. To reach this foundation, synthesizing and brainstorming processes involved people all over Burlington to share in a common vision starting back in 1999. To build this plan, surveys, focus groups, youth delegations, and hundreds of organizations dug deep to find out what the people of Burlington wanted, and what their hopes for the future were. The plan is headed by a diverse Steering Committee with “traditional” and “non-traditional” leaders who represent Burlington’s ethnic and cultural wealth. The “four E’s” act as the four table legs to Legacy’s philosophy, and are key to long-term successful development. Finally, Legacy Project collaborates with several city partners that demonstrate the Plan’s commitment towards building a sustainable city. Government entities, businesses, organizations, educational institutions, health care providers, neighborhood groups and individual citizens each play an integral role in building the philosophy and implementing the subsequent actions.

When was Legacy’s plan developed?

The process of building the plan and working with the community began in 1999 and was headed off by the former Mayor Peter Clavelle, as well as help from a mayoral steering committee. In 2000 a public involvement campaign to prepare the Legacy Plan was ratified in City Hall. The participatory process took 12 months to complete and after which, a comprehensive plan based around the four E’s was developed and implemented.

What exactly is the Legacy’s comprehensive Plan?

The Plan recognizes the challenges of increasing suburban sprawl and its effect on the city’s vitality. The plan is committed to reversing the sprawl trend by spurring growth in high-quality jobs, affordable housing opportunities, and public and private infrastructure to ensure Burlington as the economic and cultural hub of northern Vermont. The plan also recognizes that the community cannot abandon its beliefs that make Burlington such a special place to live, work and raise a family. This means keeping our firm commitment to preserving our city’s natural and physical environment, maintaining open space, and strengthening the quality of life in our neighborhoods and families. The Plan is also dedicated to the health and vitality of future generations and realizes the need to invest now in greater educational, employment, social, and recreational opportunities for young people of today. We must create a Legacy we can be proud of through the day-to-day decision making by an active city.

How does the Legacy Plan provide a framework for evaluation in determining progress and success against goals and metrics?

The Legacy Project hosts an annual Town Meeting where projects and initiatives throughout the year are celebrated. The goals and metrics originally determined in the plan are also reviewed in the meeting. The information for evaluation is gathered from various City Departments, the public and private sector, and includes the City’s key institutions and Steering Committee members (i.e. UVM, Fletcher Allen, United Way, Champlain College, BED, BBA, and more). The 2010 Town Meeting included an unveiling of the Legacy 10 Year Report Card based on the input of “sector specialists” and included initial rankings of the Legacy’s work regarding the five chapters of the plan. By the end of Summer 2010, quantifiable indicators will visually illustrate our progress in each category. In addition to the report card and Town Meeting, institutional members of the Steering Committee and City Departments make annual commitments to the Plan. For example, each year department heads are asked to review the plan and commit to and report back on specific projects or actions to realize the 2030 goals.

How does the Legacy plan foster interdepartmental and private sector cooperation on sustainability initiatives?

The cooperation seen between non-profits and business sectors is best demonstrated in the composition of the Legacy Steering Committee. They are a group composed of business and NGO leaders, as well as individuals whose expertise and work depend on cooperation and collaboration among many agencies. Many of the goals and priority actions set forth in the Plan are not cross-sectoral, yet cross-departmental by nature; therefore, collaboration between this diverse array of departments is necessary. To “Create a Vibrant Urban Center.” One example of inter-departmental work in Burlington is the Burlington Sustainability Action Team (BSAT), otherwise known as the Mayor’s Green Team, who are charged with bringing many of the goals of the Plan to fruition, especially through City operations. The group consists of representatives from each City office who have experience in work across departments on several initiatives. BSAT nominated Jessie Frank, Executive Secretary to the City’s Chief Financial Officer for a Governor’s Environmental Award for her work across city departments to implement the EPP.

What process did the city go through in developing the Legacy Plan that provided for broad stakeholder input?

The Legacy Plan is built on a foundation of broad stakeholder input and involved many different outreach strategies and techniques. For example, a youth delegation was formed to integrate the voices and concerns of our younger community members, and NPA (Neighborhood Planning Assembly) meetings were used as a means of outreach to Burlingtonians in each of the city’s 7 wards.

What are some demonstrated successes of achieving the goals and objectives of the Legacy plan?

There are multiple cases of the Legacy Project achieving its goals and objectives. For example, through the Champlain Housing Trust and other non-profits, Burlington has added to its stock of subsidized, affordable housing. With Burlington’s work on energy efficiency is also a success story. With tremendous work from the Burlington Electric Department, Burlington uses as much energy today as we did in the mid-1980s. Lastly, the Burlington School Food Project, which supports healthy children, farms, and local food production, serves as a national model of a working Farm-to-School program. The project has had a tremendous impact on the quality of life of our community and helps meet equity, environmental, and economic goals in of the Legacy Plan.