Aerial view of a small Vermont town with a historic church, brick buildings, a river waterfall, parked cars, and lush greenery.

Vermont Municipalities

Strengthening Vermont Communities for a Resilient, Sustainable Future

For more than 35 years, VHB has been serving Vermont agencies and municipalities to improve mobility, enhance economic vitality, and balance development and infrastructure needs with environmental stewardship. We’re continuing to do so today from our offices in South Burlington, Rutland, and Montpelier.

VHB’s Vermont offices are home to over 100 transportation and water resources engineers, surveyors and GIS specialists, landscape architects, planners, permitting professionals, and contaminated soils scientists. We collaborate closely with state and local governments, specializing in community design, complete streets, shared-use paths, traffic solutions, bridge assessments and replacements, slope stabilization, flood studies and remediation, and master planning. Our team works hand-in-hand with Vermont municipalities to enhance mobility, enrich communities, boost economic vitality, and balance development and infrastructure needs with environmental stewardship.

Our team members value embracing our clients’ goals, anticipating challenges, building long-lasting partnerships, and providing exceptional service. Our ability to help our clients plan, initiate, and complete complex, multi-disciplined, challenging, and important projects has given rise to an impressive portfolio of success, demonstrated by the high percentage of VHB’s repeat customers.

A Comprehensive Suite of Services

From transportation to flood mitigation and resiliency, we offer a broad range of services tailored to meet our clients’ needs:

Transportation Engineering, Design & Planning

We, as Vermonters, truly value our state and look at all projects with an emphasis on preserving its character and quality of life. Our 30+ years of serving Vermont municipalities and agencies has provided us with a depth of experience across a wide range of projects—from corridor studies and area-wide plans to Complete Streets evaluations to major urban street reconstruction projects. Together, our team of engineers, planners, and scientists have helped revitalize downtown areas, replace or construct safer streets, encourage economic development—and more.

Bicycle & Pedestrian Planning & Design
Roadway & Highway Planning & Engineering
Safety Analysis
Signal Design, Operations & Engineering
Transit & Rail Services
Transit Oriented Development
Transportation Planning & Traffic Engineering

Land Planning & Landscape Architecture

As planners, urban designers, landscape architects, engineers, and scientists, VHB provides a suite of integrated services for a wide range of projects. We have worked with numerous municipal and regional planning entities, as well as private sector clients (owners, developers, etc.) throughout Vermont and New England to address zoning and municipal planning challenges and have developed innovative solutions to overcome these hurdles to receive project approval.

Community Planning
Due Diligence Research & Analysis
Landscape Architecture
Land Use Planning & Analysis
Master Planning
Visual Impact Assessments

Environmental Planning & Permitting

As a company, VHB has been working with NEPA for almost 40 years. Our team has extensive experience in preparing supporting documentation to satisfy the NEPA requirements of various federal agencies, be it a Categorical Exclusions (CE), Environmental Assessment (EA), or Environmental Impact Statements (EIS). VHB also regularly assists public and private clients throughout Vermont with preparing materials and supporting documentation for local, State (Act 250, Section 248), and Federal permitting processes.

22VSA 14 Review & Compliance
Act 250 & Section 248 Support
Ecological Studies/Inventory
Rare, Threatened & Endangered, Wildlife & Habitat Assessments
Section 4(f) Evaluations
Section 106/NEPA Review & Compliance
Water Resources Management
Wetlands Delineation, Mitigation & Permitting

Post-Disaster Assistance

VHB has worked with public and private sector clients along the East Coast in post-disaster recovery and mitigation efforts—including Vermont municipalities. VHB was retained by the Vermont Agency of Transportation to mobilize 50 engineers, surveyors, hydrologists, geomorphologists, and environmental scientists to aid in the design and reconstruction of roads and bridges at 55 repair sites in central and southern Vermont in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. VHB has also been providing VTrans with important flood recovery services in response to the July 2023 flooding. VHB’s capacity, know-how, and trusted status were leveraged to help VTrans expedite the repair and replacement of multiple culvert and bridge crossings on the LVRT, damaged during the July 2023 flood events. VHB collaborated closely with the USACE and facilitated VTrans’ Section 106 consultation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to find avenues and provide support to accelerate the necessary construction approvals.

Cultural Resources & Historic Preservation Planning

VHB’s Cultural Resources team offers a full complement of historic preservation compliance, planning, and documentation services for public- and private-sector clients. VHB’s South Burlington-based architectural historians and preservation planners have unique experience with Vermont-specific projects and historic resource permitting, including Section 106, Section 4(f), Section 248, and Act 250, as well as mitigation elements.

Archival Research & Oral History Projects
CDBG Program Projects
Ecological Studies/Inventory
Historic Preservation Ordinances & Design Guidelines Development
Historic Surveys & Documentation Reports
Interpretive Panels, Walking Tours & Presentations/Lectures
National Register Nominations
Property Redevelopment & Adaptive Reuse Planning
Public Education and Outreach
State & Federal Regulatory Review & Compliance

Site Investigation & Remediation

VHB’s Site Investigation and Remediation (SI&R) team, our fastest-growing group, serves a diverse client portfolio including state and local governments, higher education, regional planning commissions, and private-sector clients. Our team excels in conducting investigation and cleanup planning services, preparing SMPs and CAPs, and managing large-scale infrastructure projects. We are dedicated to providing comprehensive environmental consulting services for redevelopment projects complicated by contamination in soil, groundwater, or hazardous materials.