New zoning could effect look of Vergennes

VERGENNES At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8, Vergennes officials and residents will take what could be one of the final steps on what has been close to a five-year journey.

Then, in the city fire stations basement meeting room, aldermen will convene a public hearing on new zoning regulations proposed by the Vergennes Planning Commission. A copy of the laws is posted at vergennes.org.

Planners have been working on those zoning laws since Vergennes adopted its award-winning city plan in October 2009.

When and if adopted by aldermen, the laws will create two new zoning districts, tweak regulations in other districts, and incorporate the citys subdivision regulations and significantly update them for the first time in 40 years.

The plan itself was the product of more than two years of work by the citys planners, who before writing the document conducted surveys, held well-attended forums and even interviewed residents waiting in line at the recycling center.

The Vergennes City Plan, said current planning commission chairman Shannon Haggett, provides both the vision for the citys future and the underpinnings for the new zoning laws, which planners approved after their own public process and gave to aldermen last month.

The goal of the process ... is to really to take the tenets set forth in the plan and reconcile our current zoning and subdivision regulations with them, Haggett said, so that our regulations are matching the intent of the plan, which was informed by the people coming together and saying these are the things that we want to see in the city of Vergennes.

Aldermen must hold at least Tuesdays public hearing; they may choose to hold more. If they accept planners work as is or with only minor technical changes, they may then adopt the laws.

If aldermen want to make major changes based on what they see or what they hear from the public, the proposal must go back to the planners to be reworked, and the hearing process must from scratch back before planners.

Haggett hopes and expects that wont be necessary, given that both the plan and the zoning laws have been based on extensive public input over the past five years for example, just recently, based on testimony at their final public hearing, planners added density bonuses for planned unit developments in the citys agricultural zone.

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New zoning could effect look of Vergennes