GrowSmart Maine promotes sustainable prosperity for all Mainers by integrating
working and natural landscape conservation, economic growth, and community revitalization.
Vibrant community centers aren't just assets that attract tourists and new workers to our state; they also happen to incubate many of the state's small businesses.
Like the successful Land for Maine's Future program, which conserves wild and rural landscapes statewide, the Communities for Maine's Future program will provide targeted "quality of place" investments in the downtowns, Main Streets, and village centers where Mainers live and work. The goal is to simultaneously enhance the Maine "brand" while also building more vibrant local economies.
Across Maine, communities are struggling to bring the vision embedded within their Comprehensive Plan to fruition. For the last 18 months a pilot project of GrowSmart Maine’s Model Town program has worked with the Town of Standish, Maine, and a coalition of state nonprofits and government agencies, to help the people of Standish move toward an integrated approach to implementing their smart growth-oriented Vision. This approach features the revitalization of existing village centers as a central strategy to protect and enhance community-wide rural character and natural resources. The ‘Lessons Learned’ – what worked and what didn’t work – from this demonstration project are applicable and valuable to numerous communities across the State.
Join us for a series of workshops in four regions of the state to explore the role of Community Visioning and Civic Engagement in implementing a community comprehensive plan and other plans. For more information, dates and locations, and to register, click here.
In 2010, GrowSmart Maine will work with the town to update its zoning ordinances in order to legalize and encourage the kind of walkable, vibrant village development that residents envision for their town's future.
Maine voters have approved Communities for Maine's Future
