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Exit 4 Zoning
The Randolph Planning Commission made the finishing touches last week Wednesday to a bold, innovative, and complicated land use plan for the town’s most commercially valuable property—the area around Exit 4 with its heavy north-south traffic. The plan attempts to make it possible to develop parcels of that property for various residential, cultural, and commercial use (though not retail use) while preserving most what is acknowledged as one of the most dramatic views along the entire I-89 corridor. Four slightly different zones are proposed, each located in a different quadrant of the intersection of I-89 and Route 66. The quadrants are designated as: Northwest: the parcels behind and downhill from Rinker’s. Southwest: the parcels behind and downhill from the golf driving range. Northeast: the parcel up to and beyond ClearSource and Aadco. Southeast: a largely undeveloped and forested parcel on your right just as you pass I-89 going uphill toward Randolph Center. Most regulations and requirements are the same in each of the quadrants, but the permitted uses vary somewhat. Developments in all four of the quadrants must also pass muster with a new set of "design control" standards. Planning Commission approval of the zoning package comes after nearly 10 years of study committees, and some 10 months after the commission first approved Exit 4 zoning last summer. That June plan was re-worked after legal experts pointed out problems in the drafting. Exit 4 zoning now goes to the Randolph selectboard, which must hold at least one public hearing. After that, the selectboard may approve the plan, reject it, or make changes. If it makes "substantial" changes, the board must hold another public hearing. The zoning may be enacted by vote of the board alone. ‘Threads the Needle’ Julie Iffland of Tatro Hill Road was chair of the Planning Commission during most of the drafting of the ordinance, and she was acting chair Wednesday when the proposal finally passed, by a 5-1 vote. "This zoning proposal threads the needle between the views of some who prefer no development, some who prefer no regulation, and the majority of folks in the middle," she said. Those folks in the middle, she said, "want to allow for development, provided it is done in a way that doesn’t unduly impact the scenic beauty of the place or worsen traffic safety or traffic flow." The Planning Commission’s approach, she said, "is to allow for a wide range of potential uses, while conditioning many of those uses so that the applicant must show that the layout, use, design, placement, and access minimize the impacts of development that most concern the public." (See other story for details of the provisions.) The 10-month legal delay was a good thing, she said. "In my mind this is a far better regulation than the one we presented prior to legal review." New Chairman Voting in favor of the ordinance were Jenny Carter, Iffland, Hugo Liepmann, Sherri Strickland, and Ed Lincoln. Ken Preston voted no. Alan Heath and Charles Russell were absent from that meeting. Russell said Wednesday that he would have joined Preston in voting no. Quoting the Vermont Constitution, Russell said he feels the Exit 4 zoing amounts to "taking away a portion of a person’s property without just compensation" and thus illegal. In absentia, however, Heath (who is said to favor the proposal) was elected to become chair of the commission. He replaces former chair Scott Berkey, who resigned from the commission in February, believing that the Exit 4 zoning had become too restrictive. Berkey said at that time he would oppose the zoning proposal as passed. Iffland and Town Manager Peter Butterfield both said they hope to schedule a joint meeting between the selectboard and the planning commission so that the selex’ questions can be answered by the citizens who have been part of the process. |
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