by Dave Soulia, for FYIVT.com
When Pittsford pushed back on the Rutland Regional Planning Commission’s draft Future Land Use (FLU) map, it sounded like a local fight: one town objecting to being painted dark-green “Rural Conservation” on a new set of regional maps.
The spreadsheet provided by RRPC shows it’s much bigger than that.
RRPC emphasizes that the map is not final.
“Please note that this map is still in draft form and represents the first revision following the LURB pre-application review process,” RRPC planner Devon Neary wrote in an email transmitting the data. “The next step will be to go through our public hearing process required for plan adoption.”
The first public hearing in that adoption process is scheduled for March 17, 2026.
Across the entire Rutland Region, the draft Act 181 map that RRPC is required to prepare under state Act 181 and Land Use Review Board (LURB) guidance:
- nudges the share of land in higher-density “growth” categories from 6.6% down to 6.3%, while
- driving Rural Conservation from 41.0% up to 57.9% of all land area.
In other words: region-wide, the total growth footprint barely changes. What changes is that a large slice of ordinary rural and working land is being re-labeled as land “intended to be conserved.”
A majority of towns are now majority “Rural Conservation”
There are 27 municipalities in the Rutland Region. Under the pre-application map, many already had substantial conservation designations, especially in the Green Mountain spine and large state forest blocks.
Under the December 2025 draft:
- 17 out of 27 towns now have more than half of their land designated as Rural Conservation.
- At the top of the list:
- Mount Tabor – 98.9% Rural Conservation
- Chittenden – 89.8%
- Mendon – 84.1%
- Ira – 73.3%
- West Rutland – 69.9%
- Proctor – 69.1%
Pittsford is in that group as well:
- Pittsford – Rural Conservation jumps from 19.3% to 56.3% of town land.
By contrast, only a few towns see Rural Conservation stay below one-third of their land area. Rutland City is the only municipality where Rural Conservation actually shrinks noticeably, from 27.3% down to 21.0%.
Growth is concentrated in a few places
If the conservation side is spread widely, the growth side is not.
Using the same RRPC data, the share of each town’s land in growth categories (Downtown Center, Village Center, Village Area, Planned Growth Area, Transition or Infill, Enterprise, Resource-Based Recreation) looks like this in the Dec. 2025 draft:
- Rutland City – 79.0% of land in growth categories
- Killington – 31.5%
- Proctor – 14.5%
- Fair Haven – 13.7%
- Poultney – 13.6%
- Rutland Town – 10.9%
- Pittsford and West Rutland – 8.6% each
At the bottom end:
- Chittenden – 0.8% growth
- Mendon – 3.3%
- Ira – 0.0% (effectively no land in growth categories)
- West Haven – 0.1%
So even after revisions, Rutland City and Killington remain the clear growth hubs on the regional map. Pittsford, West Rutland, Fair Haven, Poultney, Proctor and a few others get modest growth envelopes. Many hill towns are essentially treated as long-term conservation reservoirs, with almost no land left in clearly designated “build here” categories.
Pittsford in context
Pittsford’s numbers stand out because the change is so stark:
- Rural Conservation: 19.3% → 56.3% of town land
- Growth categories (combined): 11.8% → 8.6%
That means:
- more than half the town is now mapped as land “intended to be conserved,” and
- less than a tenth of the town is in any kind of growth category.
But the spreadsheet makes it clear Pittsford is not alone:
- Proctor goes from 12.7% to 69.1% Rural Conservation, while its growth share rises to 14.5%.
- West Rutland goes from 34.5% to 69.9% Rural Conservation, with 8.6% in growth.
- Castleton goes from 34.7% to 51.5% Rural Conservation.
- Fair Haven goes from 46.6% to 58.2% Rural Conservation.
- Tinmouth, Wallingford, Wells, Sudbury and others all see double-digit jumps in conservation share.
Taken together, the pattern is straightforward:
- the overall growth footprint in the region is almost flat,
- growth is concentrated heavily in Rutland City, Killington, and a short list of corridor and village towns, and
- most other towns see a substantial share of their land reclassified as Rural Conservation.
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Who is driving what?
It’s important to be clear about who is doing what in this process.
Regional planning commissions like RRPC are the ones doing the math and drawing the polygons, but they are working inside a framework written in Montpelier. Act 181 and the Land Use Review Board set the categories, the data sources, and the review standards.
In Pittsford’s case, the regional commission was prepared to adjust the regional FLU for Pittsford to better match the existing local Town Plan. The larger push toward the current template is coming from the state level, through LURB’s review and the Act 181 mapping standards, not from a local desire in Rutland to override towns.
The data below reflects the Dec. 30, 2025 draft. As RRPC notes, this map is still in draft form and will go through a public hearing process before any final regional plan is adopted.
Why publish the numbers?
The map pictures are dramatic, but they can still feel abstract. The RRPC spreadsheet reduces the question to something every landowner and town official can understand:
What share of your town’s land is now officially designated as Rural Conservation, and how much is left in clearly marked growth areas?
The table below pulls out three key numbers for every municipality:
- Rural Conservation, pre-application map (2018 FLU baseline)
- Rural Conservation, Dec. 2025 draft Act 181 FLU
- Growth share, Dec. 2025 draft (all growth categories combined)
All values are percentages of total land area in that town.
Rutland Region towns – Rural Conservation and growth shares
Source: RRPC “FLU DATA_Dec2025 rev1.xlsx” (Dec. 30, 2025 draft, provided by RRPC planner Devon Neary). Values are percent of total land area in each town. Map and data are still in draft form and will go through a public hearing process before any final plan is adopted. The first hearing is scheduled for March 17, 2026.
| Town | Rural Conservation pre (%) | Rural Conservation draft (%) | Growth draft (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benson | 33.3 | 30.8 | 2.7 |
| Brandon | 36.3 | 58.3 | 6.9 |
| Castleton | 34.7 | 51.5 | 8.5 |
| Chittenden | 79.0 | 89.8 | 0.8 |
| Clarendon | 20.7 | 40.0 | 6.4 |
| Danby | 11.5 | 30.7 | 5.1 |
| Fair Haven | 46.6 | 58.2 | 13.7 |
| Hubbardton | 49.6 | 59.2 | 3.2 |
| Ira | 35.4 | 73.3 | 0.0 |
| Killington | 37.9 | 65.3 | 31.5 |
| Mendon | 79.8 | 84.1 | 3.3 |
| Middletown Springs | 22.1 | 41.6 | 0.6 |
| Mount Holly | 70.3 | 64.3 | 1.8 |
| Mount Tabor | 96.9 | 98.9 | 0.0 |
| Pawlet | 25.2 | 29.8 | 4.3 |
| Pittsford | 19.3 | 56.3 | 8.6 |
| Poultney | 21.1 | 32.8 | 13.6 |
| Proctor | 12.7 | 69.1 | 14.5 |
| Rutland City | 27.3 | 21.0 | 79.0 |
| Rutland Town | 16.0 | 29.0 | 10.9 |
| Shrewsbury | 40.0 | 66.5 | 0.9 |
| Sudbury | 30.5 | 45.0 | 3.8 |
| Tinmouth | 34.1 | 58.8 | 0.2 |
| Wallingford | 53.0 | 63.1 | 1.6 |
| Wells | 37.2 | 53.1 | 6.8 |
| West Haven | 21.5 | 47.9 | 0.1 |
| West Rutland | 34.5 | 69.9 | 8.6 |