Nick Zaiac

Regional Planner in VT. YIMBY literally developing his back yard. Ex DC think tank wonk. Personal account.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

What a time to commit to a short-turn road erosion inventory contract near the crest of the Greens.

[NWS Albany @NWSAlbany]

Northwest winds will continue to push wildfire smoke from fires far NE Minnesota and SW Ontario into the Northeast U.S. This will produce poor air quality and reduced visibility today. There is an Air Quality Alert in effect for the entire region.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

I have a soft spot for old water resource planners, itself among the oldest fields in planning. A life spent standing in ditches mapping culverts will teach you about what it means for infrastructure to be persistent, important, and tied to the will of the voters.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

My favorite part of planning/governing in ancient places is the deep history of the infrastructure. The challenge of the job is in making the most of it in the context of historic voters and tax bases

[Matt Glassman @MattGlassman312]

In most contexts, you start with entrenched interests that prefer the status quo, plus existing infrastructure that simply isn't moving (i.e. the NYC subway system). Any changes (regulatory or deregulatory) are just that--*changes.* That's way harder than scratch-starts. 2/3

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

Thinking back to last fall when I taught a high school forestry class how to access state LiDAR maps and it immediately created a secondary market in hunting/hiking/ATV print-outs.

[MoundLore @MoundLore]

Florida LiDAR

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

Happy to share that @AliZaiac has been named Executive Director of the Better Bennington Corporation.

https://t.co/LJeONQoQnn

[Gary Winslett 🌐🇺🇸 @GaryWinslett]

Ok, so it looks very likely that we are going to be a very consequential housing bill out of Congress and to the President for his signature. Here’s a cheat sheet of some of the most important parts of the bill (just going through the text in order). 1/10

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

That said. This is just a first step. I’m working up a hopefully-comprehensive post 181/325 list of legislative actions to make the most of VT’s the new planning environment. DM if you or your legislators want to discuss.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

Excited for the post-S.325 Act 181 planning paradigm.

Consolidating Act 250 reform while removing countervailing measures is something desperately needed to make progress toward statewide housing targets.

[Governor Phil Scott @GovPhilScott]

Today I signed S.325 which repeals the harmful Road Rule and Tier 3 provisions the legislative supermajority enacted in 2024 over my objection. While I appreciate their willingness to reverse course, if they had just engaged with us, the minority, and rural Vermonters, we wouldn't have wasted valuable time and hundreds of thousands of dollars just to arrive at the same conclusion.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

Planner friends don’t let planner friends encourage density bonuses and PUDs predicated on open space set asides.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

@GaryWinslett To be fair, seems like the party acknowledged he was unbeatable years ago and the sensible moderates sat on the sideline waiting their turn while the series of progs sacrificed themselves.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

@GaryWinslett Recently had a public record disagreement with one of my towns after proposing that they repeal a requirement that small home daycares undergo site plan review, adding weeks to zoning permitting.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

Imagine being from Arlington, UK

[Basil🧡 @LinkofSunshine]

It really does humble you living in city that’s the 3rd biggest city with the same name

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

Sometimes you have to appreciate the honesty of the NIMBYs in not trying to hide the ball. (Taken in the area east of Boise State University)

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

Flying into Boise last night, I was struck to have not seen a cluster of structures let alone a town between Sioux Falls, SD and Idaho Falls, ID.

[Hunter📈🌈📊 @StatisticUrban]

The Western US is highly urbanized, sparsely populated, and vast.

It's not wholly wrong to think of it as an archipelago of cities connected by thin strips of asphalt.

Many who've never been don't understand this. It's nothing like the East, with its many, many towns.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

Literally the cheapest psf house I’ve seen in VT

[M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray]

Americans need to stop having an inferiority complex about where they choose to live and just completely and unironically embrace it. You're in a great place, chill.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

An apt quote under the Golden Dome this morning

[Aaron Shroyer @ShroyerAaron]

New @BrookingsInst paper from me estimating the housing potential of USPS-owned property nationwide & the annual revenue that a full build-out could generate 🧵

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

@GaryWinslett Anecdata: the last 2 winners of the statewide bike/ped planning career achievement awards bike/walk to work, but both still own cars even if they’re not used daily.

[Nick Zaiac @NickZaiac]

I don’t know about big cities but of the 17 municipalities I cover there are examples in about half of them.

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

I'm interested in "trapped buildings": those that couldn't be built today (because of zoning and code changes) but also can't be substantially modified or demolished (because of historic protection rules). One of those phenomena that really makes one wonder what exactly we're trying to do.

Has anyone ever estimated what fraction of buildings in major cities fall into this category?

When I asked Claude about San Francisco, it concluded: "If forced to give a single number with a single confidence rating: roughly 100,000 buildings — about two-thirds of San Francisco's physical structures — sit in the trap as a practical matter. Confidence: moderate. The number could be 70,000 or 130,000 depending on how strictly you operationalize "can't be substantially modified.""