Thetford
The plan includes wide-ranging goals, including boosting the town’s limited supply of affordable housing, improving pedestrian access in its constituent villages, and promoting sustainable energy projects and an intergenerational population.
Central to the plan is the belief the town derives its worth from its rural, picturesque character. But that character could “easily change,” the introduction warns. “It is not an exaggeration to say that Thetford could look like any one of the hundreds of overcrowded, overdeveloped towns up and down the East Coast that let development happen to them.”
The question of how to preserve the 2,600-person town’s rustic appeal while simultaneously promoting economic growth guided much of Thursday’s public discussion.
The plan’s section on natural resources — which includes recommendations that the town better maintain its culverts, minimize erosion and the spread of invasive species, and conserve existing floodplains and wetlands — drew a critical response from some attendees.
Parks asserted that the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission had an outsized influence on its composition.
“I think they have an agenda and you guys really don’t recognize that agenda,” Parks said of Two Rivers, which assists area towns in gathering data and drafting policy recommendations.
Whitlock, a member of the Thetford Planning Commission, defended the document. The panel already had cut from it significantly, he said, and had received positive feedback from other residents.
“The people who came to early meetings were really supportive of what was in the natural resources and energy chapters,” he said.
The plan calls for maintaining wildlife corridors and protecting imperiled species, including the small-footed bat and marsh mermaid weed. It is highly likely, the plan says, that there exist “many more undocumented occurrences of rare, threatened, and endangered species in town.”
Sean Mullen, who works in special education at Thetford Academy, endorsed the plan’s goal of broadening housing availability through rezoning and the encouragement of affordable housing initiatives.
“I know young teachers who can’t afford to live in Thetford and instead live in a condo in Hartford,” he said. “Subdivisions in Lebanon and Hartford: those are the areas where young people are moving to. People can’t afford to buy a 2-acre lot, dig a well, put in a septic tank.”
For some attendees, the most noteworthy parts of the plan were not the goals it included, but rather those absent — lowering taxes, for example. Sharon Harkay questioned the prudence of recommending the town “investigate purchasing state or federal lands when any come up for sale in Thetford.”
Noting her tax bill had increased fourfold since she bought her house, Harkay said, “We can’t afford to be buying lands and putting in all these new facilities.”
Jason Crance, chairman of the town’s Planning Commission, stressed the plan was designed to be a resource, rather than a set of dictates. “The point is we have a limited budget, and we want to give the officials in the town options,” he said.
Former Selectman Mike Pomeroy, who owns Baker’s General Store in Post Mills, questioned how the town would achieve the goals enumerated in the plan.
Citing a proposed policy of encouraging “the location of future housing to complement existing or planned employment patterns,” Pomeroy asked, “So we’re going to encourage people to build houses in Hanover?”
Throughout the hearing, residents grappled with the challenges posed by Thetford’s layout.
Without a main drag — there is no stoplight in town — it is harder for the town to secure revitalization grants or spur development.
The plan calls for enrollment in Vermont’s village center designation program, whose benefits include potential tax credits for businesses that redevelop historic buildings.
While some attendees argued for developing the area surrounding the Route 113/I-91 interchange, others argued instead for a renewed focus on the commercial cluster around Route 5 in East Thetford.
Chapter 13 of the plan includes a recommendation applying narrowly to Post Mills: to reclassify much of its “village residential” zoning district as “neighborhood residential” and “rural residential.”
The change would restrict certain commercial activities in swaths of land in the village around Routes 113 and 244.
Thursday’s meeting was the first of two state-mandated hearings to solicit public comment on the plan. In adjourning the gathering, Selectboard Chairman Stuart Rogers announced the hearing would resume at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 7, to be followed later in the fall by the second warned hearing.
For the plan to take effect a majority of the Selectboard must vote to adopt it.
Rogers said he’d convene a third hearing, if necessary. Last week, the roughly two-dozen attendees reviewed just four of the plan’s 13 sections before time expired.
The document’s length did not go unnoted.
Of the plan’s intention to provide a “10,000-foot view of Thetford in 2017,” former Selectman Bill Huff said, “I was a pilot for 30 years. I have a pretty good idea of what a 10,000-foot view looks like. This delves far too deeply into specifics.”
Asserting the new regulations and ordinances resulting from the plan could number in the hundreds, Huff asked, “Is that what we want? Is that what we need?”
Huff said that the proposed plan, at 155 pages, was too long.
He noted also the disparity in attention paid to natural resources (31 pages) and economic development (four).
The Planning Commission finished drafting the plan while short two members. “Right now we have five members; it should be seven,” Whitlock said, inviting any interested townspeople to consider joining.
He noted the town may revise the plan before it comes up for renewal in eight years, but claimed satisfaction with the present document under consideration. “It’s been a long process with a lot of input from a lot of people,” he said.
Copies of the draft plan are available at Thetford’s town hall and online at thetfordvermont.us/wp/boards-and-committees/planning-commission.
Gabe Brison-Trezise can be reached at g.brisontrezise@gmail.com.