[W]hen the Hallmark Channel wanted a quintessential New England backdrop for its 2008 movie “Moonlight & Mistletoe,” it chose the southern Vermont town of Chester, population 3,154. Now this Windsor County community faces a more dramatic scenario: Should it welcome visitors to its historic central village with ex-prisoners or gas pumps?
Drive to the corner of Routes 11 and 103 and you’ll see a seemingly serene white-clapboard house — the former headquarters of the Windsor Southwest Supervisory Union — that sits at the intersection of the town’s most contentious development debate.
It all started in 2012 when the New York Times told the nation about plans for a Dollar General big-box chain store just down the central Route 103 artery toward the town common.
“One of the things I think is crucial for Vermont, in terms of maintaining this very special brand that we have, is we don’t want to look like Anywhere, U.S.A.,” the newspaper quoted Paul Bruhn, executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont.
Three years later, Dollar General’s proposed 9,100-square-foot building remains a blueprint as opponents appeal its approval to the Vermont Supreme Court. In the meantime, the owner of the nearby white-clapboard house has leased his property as a “transition” facility for newly released prisoners and now hopes someone else will bulldoze it for a gas station and convenience store.
How will it all end? The town is still writing the script.
Residents crowded into several Select Board meetings last summer when they learned the Springfield Restorative Justice Center, which was renting single apartments for clients around Chester, wanted to consolidate its efforts by containing and monitoring three recently jailed men in a single location.
The ex-prisoner program — featuring staff and video surveillance and a ban on alcohol and weapons — doesn’t need town approval as long as it abides by all other local and state laws. But that hasn’t stopped residents from worrying that the house is on the same highway as the town elementary and high schools — each are about a half-mile away — and across the street from a liquor store.
Enter the Champlain Oil Co., which wants to raze the building and replace it with a Jiffy Mart with five gas pumps and a Subway and Ramunto’s food court. The South Burlington-based fuel business, with 33 similar locations in the region, owns a smaller convenience store just down the road but sees the corner of Routes 11 and 103 as more accommodating.
“We’re a growing company and we want to offer more to customers,” says Matt Wamsganz, Champlain Oil’s planning, development and construction manager. “We’re Vermont owned and operated with more than 600 employees. It doesn’t get more local.”
Residents aren’t so sure. Many fear a new store could promote strip development. They’re sharing their concerns with Chester’s Development Review Board, which is holding a series of public hearings on the proposal.
“Moonlight & Mistletoe,” the cable television movie still broadcast each Christmas, ends with everyone united in the center of town for a happy ending. But finding real-life consensus in Chester (founded in 1761 or 1766 — residents can’t agree) isn’t as easy.
The Jiffy Mart doesn’t need a state Act 250 land use permit, just local site plan, conditional use and floodplain approval. Champlain Oil hopes to start construction either late summer or early fall and finish by the end of the year. As for all the surrounding controversy?
“It has nothing to do with us,” Wamsganz says. “We’re not an out-of-state dollar store.”
Plans for the Dollar General store in Chester is set for another Supreme Court hearing this month. There are already 24 Dollar Generals in Vermont, not including one that is being constructed in Hardwick. The national chain went ahead with construction there shortly after beating opponents of the project in court. Local residents objected to the company’s plans to fill in a wetland with soil from a hillside on the site.
Shawn Cunningham, head of a citizens committee in Chester that has hired a lawyer to fight Dollar General, says his group hasn’t taken a position on the proposed Jiffy Mart. Instead, he’s reporting on the latest developments for the local website his wife edits chestertelegraph.org.
Says Cunningham of Chester: “It’s an interesting place to cover.”
Kevin O’Connor, a former staffer of the Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, is a Brattleboro-based writer. Email: kevinoconnorvt@gmail.com
