Go King Arthur!?

Two points in response to Stan's listserv post earlier today.

First, I'm taking issue with the state of planning and permitting in town.

Sewer extensions and waste water capacity have a direct bearing on development potential throughout the commercial and village districts. Sewer extensions and wastewater treatment have been debated in town for decades. The sticking points have always revolved around infrastructure cost and impact on future development. These are real issues reflecting intelligent, reasoned yet differing points of view.

For those who have followed the debates, a sewer extension request on Route 5 South (or across the Ledyard Bridge) was inevitable. And yet, knowing it would come, we are ill-prepared as a town government and a community to actually engage it.

Stan is 100% right that King Arthur shouldn't have to wait years for this town to come up with a plan for commercial development on Route 5 South. I'll go further and say King Arthur shouldn't have to bear the entire cost of design and infrastructure for a sewer extension it seems obvious will also benefit King Arthur's Route 5 South neighbors in years to come. Leaving the entire cost to King Arthur means they build to suit their own needs based on their own cost sensitivity. We end up with infrastructure built to serve an ad hoc need we will later tap into and quite possibly need to upgrade for other users. A poor use of King Arthur's time and treasure and a poor use of our own as well.

We also continue a pattern of ad hoc development decisions that make a mockery out of the planning and permitting process. No one plans for or designs sprawl -- it's the result of many incremental development decisions which eventually overburden infrastructure and alter the entire character of a landscape. Many of those decisions -- including here in Vermont -- are greased by developer offers to fund infrastructure improvements themselves and arguments that it's unfair to change the rules after a history of permitting ad hoc development on abutting properties. In this context, I think, Stan's "what's not to like?" approach may be both short-sighted and, uh, breezy.

As Stan points out, we are very fortunate to have our main development pressure in this instance being exerted by a very conscious and forward-thinking company that has demonstrated real sensitivity to its physical setting. So let's engage them and help each other create a plan for this stretch of town that can be a long-term home to King Arthur and businesses like them before we start facing less benevolent developers.

And yet, King Arthur first floated the idea of a sewer extension with town officials last autumn. To my knowledge, in the interim, there has been no effort to initiate a public discussion of the impacts and opportunities such an extension might pose. We've failed to plan adequately for this scale of development on Route 5 South. We've now let seven or eight months pass since this specific project hit the public radar and, to my knowledge, made no progress engaging the longer term implications of this sewer extension proposal. The answer is not "King Arthur are good people so what's there to talk about?"



My second point concerns rhetoric.

For a decade now, public discourse in this town has been marred by ridicule and dismissiveness towards opposing points of view. My tolerance for ridicule and dismissive comments may be lower than most, but it's not just a question of gentility and manners.

Example: I may not agree with a lot of what Stuart Richards says, but I think painting him as "anti-growth" glosses over the details of his concerns without much effort to understand them. Am I "anti-growth" because I think what I've expressed in the prior paragraphs? Am I the same "anti-growth" as Stuart Richards? What if Stuart thinks I'm "pro-growth?" Does this make Stan "pro-growth" without exception?

The tags are stupid because they are unexpressive. We are not just binary beings going through life defined as pro- or anti- this or that. Efforts to cast us in these roles are lazy attempts to make decisions feel black-and-white when, at least in my experience, they tend to the gray spectrum. Reducing someone's point of view to pro- or anti- anything is an act of indifference, or worse, contempt.

I'm a big fan of disagreement because it forces people to think -- about their own point of view and about others'.

I can't countenance dismissiveness.

King Arthur Qualified

I have nothing against King Arthur or their proposed sewer extension to support further business expansion. Nevertheless, I don't share the breezy lack of concern regarding unforeseen consequences expressed on the listserv these past few days.

From where I sit, this is yet another ad hoc development decision which begs the question: What's our plan?

If you follow the link above, you'll see I'm something of a broken record on this topic. If you attended the most recent public forum on the proposed town plan revisions, you'll know my concerns on this count have only deepened, but rather than beat a dead horse again, here's a positive agenda perhaps the Planning Commission, Selectboard, or (more appropriately?) an ad hoc committee could pursue:

Let's develop a smart growth plan for Route 5 South which balances commercial development, residential and recreational uses, and establishes clear rules for all these uses that are modestly aimed to guide future development in a transparent and responsible manner.

Here are some questions for that effort to grapple with - in no particular order:

1. Wouldn't a community-supported sewer access for a Route 5 South commercial district -- designed to support and facilitate what the community decides are appropriate commercial uses and densities -- be better than a privately funded and conceived sewer extension created to support a single parcel within that commercial district?

2. Shouldn't there be a conscious effort to plan for and design build-out scenarios for this commercial district that might help manage the increase in vehicular traffic that will surely result and avoid the sprawl/congestion that often occur when this type of development is pursued ad hoc by individual land owners?

3. If the town adopts a commercial district development plan, sewer access and the increased density/development value of those parcels zoned commercial in that district will be a windfall to current owners. Shouldn't the town tap this one time windfall to establish a transfer of development rights system that might be used to offset the loss of development capacity our town plan seeks to impose on rural land owners in the name of open space, conservation goals and scenic routes?

4. Wouldn't a deliberate effort to create a sensible commercial district in this specific location be a useful acid test for our existing land use regulations so we can wrestle with existing and potential uses against what those regulations actually permit? For example, would our farmer's market be permitted under our existing regulations if it wasn't already there?

5. Shouldn't the Upper Valley Events Center be rezoned commercial so they can drop the facade of being a grandfathered quasi-commercial/educational use in a zoned residential district and get on with the business of being a business?

6. Above all, isn't the entire point to balance individual land owner development interests with community development interests? That can only be done with a transparent and deliberate conversation about the competing interests involved.

King Arthur Flour -- for reasons they can best explain -- has pursued this development below the radar to the degree they have been allowed to do so. Considering the listserv references to "anti-growth" and "anti-business" townspeople living in the past, they may have felt it wise to do so. I think this is unfortunate.

First, I don't see how "anti-growth" and "anti-business" townspeople living in time warps ever come around without an opportunity to be heard and to hear out "pro-growth" "pro-business" and modern points of view. We're all taxpayers after all and many of us imagine ourselves living here for decades to come. Don't disenfranchise those with whom you disagree -- whatever satisfaction it may confer in the short term, it just doesn't work in the long run.

Second, if an ad hoc King Arthur sewer extension goes through against substantial opposition, it's the next ad hoc development on Route 5 South that will pay the price -- hardly good planning or smart growth.