Editor’s note: This story by freelancer Nicole Antal was first published on DailyUV.com.
About 100 people demonstrated Friday against the NewVista project. Local residents are up in arms about a Mormon engineer’s plan to transform four towns in the Upper Valley into a hub for a proposed sustainable community with 20,000 new residents.
David Hall, a wealthy Utah engineer, has purchased about 1,500 acres in the towns of Tunbridge, Sharon, South Royalton and Strafford, and he says he wants to buy 3,500 more acres for NewVistas. Formal plans for the project have not yet been submitted to local municipalities or Act 250 for approval.
NewVistas is based on a plan devised by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Hall’s community would have a highly organized social structure with a hierarchy similar to that of the Mormon Church. NewVistas members would be required to turn over their assets to the community.
Local residents in the Upper Valley are concerned about the impact of Hall’s land purchases on property values and the rural character of the area.
Protesters gathered to protest on the bridge in South Royalton. Community members held signs, and distributed pamphlets to passing cars.
One of the demonstrators, Michael Sacca, a Tunbridge videographer, has been a vocal opponent of the project. “I think the show of support will grow as time goes on,” Sacca said. “I really want to prove to Mr. Hall that we are going to hold him to his words, that if Vermont doesn’t want this, he will not build [the NewVista project].”
Peter Anderson lives in Sharon where Hall has purchased acreage near the birthplace of Joseph Smith. Anderson says Hall has so much money that he “can buy up properties in our community with no regard for people here.”
Clare Holland, a Sharon resident, said Hall’s proposal “makes little sense.”
“When you talk about someone that says ‘we are going to have a community, and when you join this community you will leave your financial assets and your intellectual assets with the community’ that sounds a little cultish to me, and I am concerned about that as well,” Holland said.
On Thursday, June 16, a rally was also organized in Provo, Utah, where Hall has proposed a similar NewVistas project. More than 170 people from Pleasant View protested Hall’s plan to buy up the neighborhood. Paul R. Evans, neighborhood chairman of Pleasant View in Provo, and organizer of the protest, saw the gathering as “a success for educating more people about the situation. A success in buoying the hopes and dreams of the neighborhood. A success in demonstrating the total lack of support for the solitary dream of David Hall and his NewVista.”
