Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
SHELBURNE — Debate continues around a proposed zoning change in Shelburne that would restrict development in defined forest blocks and ecological corridors.
The selectboard discussed the changes, as well as other measures that are part of a full rewrite of the town’s zoning bylaws, at meetings Nov. 4 and 18.
The board is scheduled to continue discussing the zoning update at public hearings Dec. 2 and 16, and beyond that if necessary, with the ability to pass the regulations or call for further hearings and rewrites.
Supporters of these changes hope that they will help to prepare Shelburne for the waves of development expected in the greater Burlington area over the next decades while maintaining the character of the town.
The regulations are also designed to protect the flora and fauna of Shelburne’s more rural areas.
“(The regulations are) trying to incentivize condensing development and staying out of ecologically sensitive areas,” said Mike Ashooh, Shelburne Selectboard chair, at the Nov. 4 hearing.
However, some Shelburne residents feel that the regulations risk being applied in a way that hands undue consequences to certain citizens.
“Our property is roughly 80% in the forest block … the way it’s written right now is the land that’s in the forest block is 60% non-developable, and then the remaining 40% … you can apply to develop some of it,” said David Webster, one such Shelburne resident.
He also expressed concerns about a proposed fee structure that would reduce the development restrictions.
“(The fee is per) acre within the 40% developable portion of the forest block. And that’s if you got the permission to develop it in the first place,” said Webster of the proposed payment in lieu system to avoid regulations. “You would have to pay … to develop an acre of property that you already own.”
The Selectboard does have full discretional power to declare and waive fees, which was mentioned as a possible solution to Webster’s concerns raised at a public hearing on Nov. 4.
However, Webster feels, “what we’re discussing right now is the bylaw, and, you know, that’s an indefinite to say we have the power to do that. That’s really not something that’s codified in any way in the current bylaws as they are being presented.”
Another of Webster’s issues involves the fairness of the regulations. “This is presented as something that people support,” he feels, but “only a small group of landowners are being made responsible for what’s considered a public good.”
The new regulations follow in compliance with 2016’s Vermont Act 171, which “requires towns to identify and protect forest blocks and habitat connectors,” according to the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) website.
These connectors allow wildlife threatened by development and climate change to safely move between habitats throughout the state in tune with seasonal patterns and an overall northward migration.
A multi-year project, the near-complete rewrite of land development regulations, more commonly referred to as zoning bylaws, is Shelburne’s first such project since 1963. Since then, the bylaw has since been subject to a flood of addendums and amendments.
“The apt metaphor … is the rubber band ball. The town grows, new policy issues present themselves and another rule is added to the stack, until the regulations become in many cases contradictory,” said Town Manager Matt Lawless at the Nov. 4 hearing.
Some at the hearing on Nov. 18 suggested that controversial elements of the bylaw such as forest blocking be tabled and rewritten while the rest of the regulation becomes official.
The Shelburne Selectboard, as well as the Planning Commission which originally created the document, has legal leeway from the state to adapt to public concern, and has already done so in certain areas.
“(Act 171) requires towns to plan for forest blocks and habitat connectors,” said Jens Hilke, a conservation planner with the ANR’s Fish and Wildlife Department. “The law does not require towns to regulate forest blocks and connectors.”
Towns like Shelburne have the authority to independently designate and inventory their own land, with Shelburne specifically working with environmental contractor Arrowwood Environmental to produce a report.
In these reports, experts are looking for “areas of natural cover, surrounded by roads, development, and agriculture,” said Jens Hilke, a conservation planner with the ANR’s Fish and Wildlife Department. “Areas of natural cover would include forests, as well as wetlands, water bodies, grasslands, shrublands, any sort.”
The protection of forest blocks and habitat connectors is crucial to the state’s plan for conservation and climate resilience.
“As we think about wildlife movement in the face of climate, entire populations are moving north and south away from the equator … generally through forested connections, through forest blocks and places where forest connects close to both sides of the road,” Hilke said.
“The network of protected lands and waters that Shelburne is planning for fits into this greater context of adaptation to climate change,” he said, speaking of the statewide connector system intended by Act 171. “That’s the big-picture plan, for the most important lands and waters to maintain into the future for ecological function.”
“The design doesn’t specifically address threat, but in a way it does, simply because the Champlain Valley is more fragmented, there isn’t as much of it left in natural cover,” said Hilke, and the threat to the urbanizing areas of Western Vermont is significant.
“The Champlain Valley actually has exponentially more biological diversity than the spine of the Green Mountains,” he said, adding that “Shelburne has small forest blocks … but those small forest blocks are surprisingly biodiverse.”
In light of this, towns like Shelburne in the western part of the state could continue to figure into the larger debate around balancing development and ecological reliance.
Shelburne’s public hearings regarding the new bylaw will continue on Dec. 2 and 16. Information about these meetings can be found at www.shelburnevt.org/calendar