By JEFF EPSTEIN
[email protected]
SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — At its April 3 meeting, the town planning commission agreed to a basic schedule with the Southern Windsor County Regional Planning Commission (SWCRPC) to revise proposals for new zoning and energy plans.
The plans were considered by the select board March 25, and the board then returned them to the planning commission with suggestions for another draft.
The SWCRPC provides technical support to Springfield for working through both plans, such as ensuring that the plans conform to state law where applicable. Member towns are increasingly relying on help from SWCRPC for work they feel they cannot do themselves. However, at Wednesday’s meeting the regional commission’s executive director, Tom Kennedy, suggested Springfield hold a limited number of meetings with multiple stakeholders, and suggested his small staff is being stretched thin.
Kennedy, who advocates for the region with state government, said he had traveled to the Springfield meeting after attending meetings in Montpelier earlier in the day. Another SWCRPC staff member has a newborn child, he said, and therefore has limits on the night meetings she is able to attend going forward.
However, Kennedy said his group would probably be able to incorporate the select board’s requests as long as the zoning and energy matters were handled separately, and interested bodies held joint meetings on each. He said the zoning revisions could be ready for a planning commission meeting in May, and the energy chapter revisions should go to the panel by June.
It is important to get the details right on both plans, Kennedy said, because once the select board accepts them, they would not go back to the planning commission. “Once you give it over to the board of selectmen, they can take it over,” he said. “We don’t want to rush this process.”
SWCRPC has a stronger role in the energy chapter, as Springfield is creating a local enhanced energy plan that must conform to rules of the state public utility commission (PUC). Part of the procedure is to have the regional planning committee vet the plan.
“This is not a policy document that you can do whatever you want,” Kennedy warned. “You cannot change the rules.”
Planning commission members said they understood the situation and planned to carefully make sure the PUC checklist was taken into consideration.
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