Around 90 people came out to the Folsom School and Community Center last week for a special meeting of the South Hero Select Board. They were there to discuss the idea of enacting interim zoning measures to limit the size of commercial, industrial, and professional service buildings in town.
The discussion among the public, planning commissioners, selectmen, and members of the zoning board of adjustment lasted well over an hour. The meeting minutes do not reflect a specific building project that prompted the need for interim zoning changes. Instead, the minutes state the current zoning regulations do not accurately reflect the vision put forth in the town plan, last updated in 2009.
Commercial land development in South Hero has historically been designed to be small in scale, and to serve the needs of Town residents and nearby communities. In accordance with the 2009 Town Plan, the Town of South Hero is interested in ensuring that this development trend continues. The Town is also interested in focusing commercial growth and more dense development in a new village district as described in the Plan.
The minutes go on to state South Hero is working on promoting its village center, and will be drafting new zoning bylaws that reflect that effort.
The Town of South Hero has completed a village district visioning process. The Town would like to adopt interim regulations to allow time to complete village district planning and modify the Development Regulations to bring them into conformance with the 2009 Town Plan. The interim bylaw will prevent land development which is not in conformance with the plan or substantially limits the ability of the Town to implement the goals and policies of the Plan.
To that end, the select board unanimously voted to enact interim zoning regulations that limit commercial and professional services buildings to a maximum 3,000 square feet. Industrial buildings, such as manufacturing facilities, are limited to 5,000 square feet. Hotels, motels and restaurants are exempt from the interim bylaws.
