Other Planning Services

On behalf of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future

As communities contend with aging infrastructure, stronger storms, flooding, and other natural hazards, the costs of preparing for and recovering from these events continue to grow. To help address these challenges, the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future has developed a 15-minute survey to better understand the challenges communities face when planning, funding, financing, and implementing infrastructure and resilience projects.

The feedback we receive will help inform ongoing state efforts to improve access to funding and financing tools for infrastructure, hazard mitigation, resilience, and long-term community preparedness. We’re hoping the survey will help us better understand where communities are facing challenges, what barriers exist in accessing resources, and what kinds of support would be most useful going forward.

This survey is intended for elected and appointed municipal officials, as well as volunteer community leaders, and will remain open through May 31, 2026.

Land Use Planning

These services are funded through the Department of Conservation, Agriculture, and Forestry and the Department of Transportation, municipal dues, and fee-for-service arrangements. Staff provides guidance ranging from phone calls to attendance at meetings and field visits. Work includes developing new ordinances, assisting with ordinance amendments and conducting workshops for individual member towns. Land Use Regulations include zoning, subdivision review, development (site) review, building code, ordinances regulating day care, mobile home parks, sludge spreading, signs, wind turbines, cell towers, or other potential nuisances.

KVCOG advocates for ordinances and review procedures that are easily understood and accessible by administrators as well as applicants.

KVCOG provides professional and technical assistance with drafting, implementing, administering, and enforcing land use and building regulations. The following are examples of land use services:

• Contracted Town Planner: KVCOG is able to provide town planner services to a municipality on an hours-per-month contract basis.
• Technical Assistance: Staff are available by phone, email or in person to answer questions of interpretation of regulatory language. When needed, staff may attend planning board or board of appeals meetings to assist a board in interpretation of provisions of their ordinances.
• Ordinance Drafting: KVCOG provides member towns with assistance in drafting ordinance language, ranging from simple amendments to entirely new ordinances. This assistance may include a number of meetings with local boards and other groups to gain information for the drafting process.
• Permit Review Assistance: KVCOG will assist a local board in reviewing applications for subdivision approval, development/land use permits, rezoning applications, etc. Staff also assist many towns to conduct reviews of large or complex subdivisions and site plans.
• Board Training: Staff will provide on-site or centralized training to volunteer boards. Topics include general board procedures, development procedures, forms and checklists, review practices, legal requirements. From time to time, KVCOG hosts a series of workshops at its Fairfield offices on procedural or technical planning topics.