FAIRLEE — Deecie Denison approached her seat at the small square table in the middle of the Fairlee Town Hall meeting room. She kept her eyes, framed in red glasses, on a script she had printed out for the occasion — out of character for a self-proclaimed “adrenaline junkie” who has spoken at public meetings for most of her career.
From the 23 chairs arranged to face her, nearly two dozen stern expressions stared back.
“It’s painful to sit someplace and know that your neighbors hate you for what you’re doing,” Denison said last week in her Thetford home, which borders Fairlee and has a Fairlee address.
What Denison is doing is investing in a development named after herself. The Denison would consist of two three-story buildings in the center of town, with four commercial spaces and 22 market-rate rental apartments.
The selectboard approved the project last fall. But to build it, Denison and her partners need a state financing tool called the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, or CHIP, and the selectboard has promised residents a town vote on whether Fairlee can use CHIP at all.
Across from Denison, Selectboard Chair Miranda Clemson leaned back in her own chair, one sparkly silver slip-on shoe resting against a leg of the table she shared with fellow selectboard members Lance Mills and Peter Berger. White-bearded Town Administrator Gene Craft sat diagonally across from her, monitoring his laptop screen as remote participants flooded the Zoom meeting.
“I know, it looks intimidating,” Clemson said to Denison.
Denison started her speech. She said Fairlee, which highly values tourist revenue, could benefit from a more year-round local economy. She mentioned the town plan, approved by Fairlee residents in 2020 to foster “a greater sense of community.” The plan’s specific goals include building housing and encouraging a diverse local economy. She stressed that The Denison needs CHIP to finance the septic system it would require.
“Without CHIP, The Denison does not get built,” Jonah Richard, the Fairlee native steering the project, told the room on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
Richard, 35, founded the development company Village Ventures, responsible for several new and renovated buildings in Fairlee. He leads The Denison project alongside Barrett Brown and Travis Noyes, co-owners of Chapman’s General Store and Richard’s second cousins. The three of them, along with Denison, formed Appleseed Development to focus on The Denison.
The Town Hall, an old, white building, sits in the middle of Fairlee behind a gazebo and the town commons. To its right stands the dark red Chapman’s General Store, selling groceries, toys and local knickknacks. The next building over, 501 Main — another one of Richard’s projects — houses Sunnyside Coffee Company. Across the street, a marijuana dispensary occupies the old Citgo station, which Village Ventures renovated into a retail space a few years ago.
The lot next to the dispensary used to be home to the Colby Block, a two-story building that housed apartments and commercial spaces, just like The Denison would. In 2007, the Colby Block burned down, and nothing has since taken its place. As Denison and Richard see it, building The Denison will revitalize what was once the liveliest part of the town center.
Generally, Richard’s projects have been met with approval in his hometown. This time is different. A vocal group of residents has emerged with complaints about both The Denison and CHIP. Selectboard members and CHIP proponents worry that townspeople who oppose The Denison will vote against the financing program entirely, limiting the other projects Fairlee can afford for the foreseeable future.
“People don’t want to see change,” Denison said after the meeting.
Berger is now trying to convince his fellow selectboard members to make CHIP a board vote, not a town-wide vote, following precedent set by Burlington and Middlebury, which have both used CHIP for development. He said Vermont has been adamant about municipalities expanding their grand lists — the total value of all taxable property in a town — and that CHIP could be key to such expansion in Fairlee.
After Denison’s introductory speech last Tuesday, Richard delivered a presentation addressing the concerns he has heard time and again about his development. Until he, Denison and their partners get access to CHIP, they are stuck in limbo, unable to start construction and pessimistic about securing investors.
Defending The Denison
Old road signs plaster the Fairlee Town Hall’s blue-and-yellow walls. Faded red and green paint spells out “Titus Takes Tourists” on a dark wooden panel, the relic of a Fairlee bed-and-breakfast that closed two decades ago.
All evening, residents introduced themselves by saying, “I’ve lived in Fairlee for a very long time.” One of them, Gary O’Donnell, piped up from the corner: “I don’t see why we need all this development.” Mary and Don Davenport, owners of the Wings Market on Route 5, shouted their assent from the front row.
Those frustrated with the project lobbed accusations at Richard from every angle. They insisted the building would require a level of police presence the town couldn’t provide, that the ladder on the fire department’s truck wouldn’t reach the third floor, and that Denison tenants might cram the town commons with their pets’ waste.
Richard lifted his hands and shrugged. “We’ll just have no pets,” he said.
“Everyone has an emotional support animal these days,” Dan Ludwig, whose wife, Georgette, is the town clerk, said later outside the Town Hall.
When Craft, the town administrator, started explaining that neither The Denison nor CHIP would increase local taxes, Bob Maddock practically burst out of his chair.
“That’s a false statement,” he said.
He accused Richard of turning a multimillion-dollar profit from The Denison while Maddock’s own property taxes keep rising. Then he brought up the fire truck once again, insisting its ladder only extends 24 feet.
Berger’s patience snapped then. He looked at Maddock.
“You were budgeted for a 40-foot,” he said. “If you didn’t purchase it and you don’t spend your budget, I can’t help you.”
Constance Geoghan challenged Richard’s claim that building The Denison would add only three to four new police incidents each year. Geoghan lives in New York and can’t vote on CHIP; her mother, who has a summer home on Lake Morey, can.
Geoghan’s family is also in a zoning dispute with a neighbor who hired Richard’s construction company for renovations.
“Your numbers are going to go up,” Geoghan told Richard at the selectboard meeting, her voice emanating from a black rectangle on the Zoom screen.
“We’re taking it from 1,000 residents to 1,035,” Richard said, his tone incredulous.
Geoghan told the Valley News a few days later that the four commercial spaces on The Denison’s ground floor would make the town busier, which might require Fairlee to hire another police officer. Fairlee Police Chief Wayne Briggs said Monday night that he’s concerned about the town’s population growing. As the town’s only officer, he’s already stretched thin, responding to about 600 calls a year.
“Anything like that’s a concern, when you add a big jump to any community,” Briggs said. “It’s my job to think of the what-ifs.”
Twenty-two apartments may not seem like a “big jump” in population, but The Denison isn’t the only development project in town, and even 50 people means big growth in Fairlee.
More than police presence, however, Geoghan has questioned CHIP’s significance.
“I don’t believe that a $6 million project dies on the vine of a $500,000 grant,” she said by phone Thursday. CHIP, however, is not a grant, but a financing tool.
Richard is equally adamant about its necessity. CHIP covers infrastructure costs, and the Denison team wants about $550,000 to build the new septic system behind Chapman’s General Store, since the space zoned for The Denison lacks the septic capacity needed for any serious development. While that amount will finance less than 10% of the project’s total estimated cost, Richard considers it key to attracting other investors.
“From a funder standpoint, usually the riskier sources need to come in first,” he told the Valley News. “So this is the first step of the puzzle.”
Understanding CHIP
CHIP has a built-in “but for” approval policy, meaning applicants can only use the tool if they can prove their developments could not be built “but for” CHIP. So it’s not just Richard’s word that he needs CHIP to move forward with The Denison: It’s up to the state.
According to Denison, wariness of CHIP mostly comes from confusion. CHIP is neither a grant nor a loan: It lets developers either go into debt or take out a bank loan. Appleseed would opt for the latter. Once the development starts to generate tax revenue, a share of the incremental revenue — not including the original tax value — goes to the lender to repay the debt over up to 20 years.
The share paid to the bank would come only from new tax growth. Right now, the empty lot where Richard wants to build The Denison has a property tax value of about $3,000. Appleseed would continue to pay that amount in full during the loan repayment period, as well as 100% of its taxes on The Denison’s new, much higher value. All of the original tax value plus 0% to 15% of the incremental municipal tax value would go to the town, while the rest of the tax bill would go toward repaying Appleseed’s loan.
During the repayment period, the town receives less revenue from the property than it would if it were built without CHIP, which is the essence of Geoghan’s argument against it. Nobody, however, has proposed an alternative plan; developers aren’t exactly waiting in the wings to jump on the empty lot.
“No one’s getting rich on this project,” Richard said in the selectboard meeting.
Fairlee would also get more out of the project even during the repayment period than it does now from the empty lot, with up to 15% of the municipal tax increment going to the town. Once The Denison is debt-free, Appleseed would direct all of its municipal taxes to the town — Richard has estimated he will pay around $79,000 a year in property tax.
The developers, not taxpayers, repay the loan to the bank. CHIP does not raise property taxes or municipal tax rates.
“It’s a win-win,” Denison told the Valley News.
‘The center of the world’
Denison could draw lines between almost everybody who showed up to the selectboard meeting last week.
Having lived full-time in the area since the late 1970s, Denison knew most of the people at the meeting and counts several as her friends. She was at the Ludwigs’ wedding. Noyes and Brown are related to her godson. Berger had to recuse himself from selectboard votes related to The Denison because he and Denison are in a relationship. Fairlee is the kind of place where everybody knows their neighbors’ business.
The few full-time residents who have stuck around Fairlee care deeply for their town. For some, that means they never want it to change. For others, like Denison, loving Fairlee means pushing it toward a better version of itself.
“I’m headed to 80 now, and I realize that there’s not a whole lot I can do to make an impact on anything, except take care of the people around me as best as I possibly can,” Denison said. “And that means providing housing and community where I can.”
Denison lives with two fluffy corgis in a large house that smells like dogs and a bonfire. It perches on a hill above Fin and Feather Pond, part of her 40-acre property in the woods. Before her husband, John, died in 2020, he sold the house he had long kept in California and put the money into an account for his wife. Denison has used that money to invest in real estate in and around Fairlee.
“I am doing this purely” — Denison emphasized the latter word — “out of my passion for community.”
To her, “West Fairlee Center is the center of the world.”
Since the controversy over the development began, Denison has felt that many of her friends and neighbors see her as a rich woman trying to rack up income by investing in real estate. She said it’s a feeling that has cost her hours of sleep.
In the past, harsh comments at a town meeting would have bounced right off her, but now they can bring her to tears, like they did at one two weeks ago. Denison is sure that plenty of people in the town support CHIP and The Denison, but said those in favor need to speak up. If she and Richard can’t apply for CHIP soon, they will lose momentum on the whole project.
Lisa Avery was one of the few positive voices at last week’s selectboard meeting. She stood up toward the end of the discussion, her bright mane of curly red hair grabbing the room’s attention. She said her husband, Mark, often complains that the people who work for him at the Lake Morey Resort cannot find anywhere to live in Fairlee. Avery is a social worker at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and works daily with families in need of housing. She also believes in the team behind The Denison.
“I’ve spoken with Deecie Denison on multiple occasions, and she has this vision. How phenomenal is that?” Avery told the Valley News after another selectboard meeting Monday. “Sometimes you have to take those chances, and you have to hop off that cliff a little bit, and have a little faith to make these things move forward.”
Avery turned and walked out of the Town Hall. Across the street, the lot Richard and his partners have bought for The Denison sat quietly in the dark. A mini gazebo with a sign reading “Chapman’s Place” keeps it from total abandonment.
Denison also commissioned murals by local artists to line its edge: Turtles crawl in one, and an owl tilts its head at the onlooker in another. Crop beds dot the grassy lot, another attempt by Denison to turn Chapman’s Place into a community hub. All of them are empty.
