Shelburne’s farming community voices concern over zoning regulation proposals

This story by Liberty Darr was first published by the Shelburne News on April 25.

With Shelburne in the thick of regulatory reform, members of Shelburne’s farming community — some of whom have called the town home for more than 100 years — are concerned over what some proposed changes could do to their land and property values.

Situated in the middle of the bustling Route 7 corridor, Shelburne is less than 10 miles from the state’s most populated cities, Burlington and South Burlington. During a drive down Route 7, the initial views of Shelburne don’t look much different than a small suburban community tucked in between a bustling highway packed with drive-thrus, new development and commercial businesses.

But, on the other side of town, hidden among the nearly $800,000 median-priced homes is a community of generational farmers whose families have been maintaining hundreds of acres of Shelburne land, some for over a century. Now, as the town begins to discuss changes in its rural zoning districts, the farmers have set down their farming implements and instead taken up attending planning commission meetings.

After hearing requests from community members last year to undertake the massive zoning project with the help of a consultant, the town hired PlaceSense to lead the way with regulatory reform. Since then, the bylaw rewrite has been underway with a second draft of the proposed changes on the way, town planning and zoning director Aaron DeNamur said.

But initial proposals have caused a stir among some landowners who say that the proposals devalue their property and cause an undue burden to their farming operations. The crux of the concern centers on a proposal to change from 5-acre zoning in certain parts of the rural district to 10-acre zoning.

Like much of the state, Shelburne is toeing the line trying to protect the town’s natural resources while also encouraging the development of much-needed housing — one aspect that the zoning rewrite is attempting to remedy. The proposal to switch from 5-acre to 10-acre zoning in certain parts of the rural district, DeNamur said, would funnel growth and development into more residential parts of town, while discouraging it in places like the rural district, where much of the town’s conserved land is.

“I think the consultants proposed that change, again, just as an extra step to encourage the protection of space in that part of town because it is encouraged in the town plan,” DeNamur said. “I think that’s really the prime motivation behind the recommendation.”

But in an open letter circulated on social media last month, four farms and farm families — Guillemettes, Lapierres, Mailles, and Fisher Brothers Farm — banded together to highlight what exactly these types of proposed changes could do to their land.

“It negatively impacts our ability to secure financial backing, to grow our businesses, to provide for our families, to be successful,” they wrote in a letter signed by the six farmers. “If the end result that various groups are trying to achieve is truly the maintenance of ‘open lands,’ the course they are setting is not the way to do it, as we are, in fact, the people who maintain the open lands,” adding that it wrecks their motivation for doing so, and targets their property as “undesirable” at a time when land is becoming an increasingly more competitive asset.

“That maintenance will most definitely end,” they wrote.

Andy Lapierre, whose family has owned a farm on Route 116 since 1912, explained that although his family isn’t looking to necessarily develop, the changes to 10-acre zoning could greatly change the value of his property, making the future of several farms in the area uncertain.

“Putting more restrictions really takes away a lot of options of what the future might hold for the farms,” he said. “That greatly changes the property value. A lot of conservation people are pushing to get their two cents into it. It’s just been a lot of changes that they want to make that don’t necessarily benefit the landowners.”

Similarly for the Mailles — the last family-owned dairy farm in Shelburne, which has been operating for 105 years — as their youngest son Benjamin looks to take over farm operations, the zoning proposals put his future livelihood at stake, Sylvia Maille said.

“My son, who’s a fourth-generation farmer farming in Shelburne, he has to be able to make a living and if he can’t sell,” Sylvia Maille said at a planning commission meeting, tossing her hands in the air. “Protect us who are helping the town.”

DeNamur emphasized that since there are mixed views and a strong stance against the proposal from landowners, the planning commission has yet to make any concrete decisions about the 10-acre zoning proposal.

“I do anticipate that the planning commission will be discussing that in May,” he said. “And likely we’ll make a decision where to go for at least the second draft. I do suspect that being discussed next month.”

Becky Castle and Bob Clark, whose farming endeavors began at their farm Fisher Brothers Farm in 2012 and may be considered a “newer” farm on the block compared to some of their neighbors, have spearheaded much of the advocacy efforts in recent months.

“The town plan says that they want working lands, they want passive recreation. We’re that, and the Lapierres, the Mailles, the Guillemettes, and other farms all are doing land-based businesses,” Clark said. “When you start to erode the value of our land, that’s directly eroding the value of our livelihood.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Shelburne’s farming community voices concern over zoning regulation proposals .