This commentary is by Dana Walrath, a writer and medical anthropologist who lives in South Burlington.
In New Zealand — a place that surpasses even our beloved Green Mountain State for its varied natural beauty — rivers, mountains and trees have legal rights that protect them from development. This is thanks to the Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, who have worked long and hard to embed their values into the legal systems that British colonizers brought with them 200 years ago.
Not so here in Vermont, or within any of these United States. Here, our legal systems, similarly rooted in the laws of British colonizers, mediate between financial interests of developers and the potential individual harm development might cause to the people living next door.
We’ve had no tempering influx of values that steward and protect the shared resources of this Earth, such as a public park.
This seemingly abstract and faraway contrast sheds light on every step of a very local issue: the community efforts to stop Burton Corp.’s placement of a 1,500-seat concert venue directly across the street from 100 acres of treasured parkland under the jurisdiction of a separate municipality.
After the recent Environmental Court decision, it will now be up to Vermont’s Supreme Court to decide whether Burlington’s Burton will be allowed to place this massive alcohol-serving, late-night venue across the street from South Burlington’s Red Rocks Park.
From permitting to the court proceedings to press coverage, this issue is framed solely in terms of legal rights instead of the long-term impact on communities. Community is defined solely in human terms, omitting the Earth that sustains us.
While Vermont’s Act 250 provides a “quasi-judicial process for reviewing and managing the environmental, social, and fiscal consequences of development,” it is most effective for new developments in single municipalities. It proved inadequate for repurposing a structure already zoned as industrial across the street from parkland in a separate municipality.
Priceless parkland lies outside of the fiscal realm that Act 250 was designed to review. Our legal systems give no explicit rights to a shared natural resource such as a river or mountain or cliffs, and limit testimony by individual citizens on behalf of these resources. All this allows Burton and its business partner Higher Ground to falsely cast this misguided development project, one that threatens Red Rocks Park, as a matter of a few residents looking out for themselves instead of as a matter of protecting and stewarding a vital natural resource.
Spread along the shore of Lake Champlain (another shared resource that was frequently closed for swimming on account of the high levels of E. coli that extreme flooding released this summer), Red Rocks Park is a rich ecosystem of stunning red cliffs, native plants and wildlife. It is home to wildflowers such as massive stands of white trillium, colorful wild columbine, and Dutchman’s Britches. Bald eagles, barred owls and peregrine falcons nest here. Mammals, in addition to the many humans and their canine friends who walk the park’s trail, include racoons, fox, deer, beavers, otters, badgers and fisher cats.
The northwestern tip of the park faces the stone form of the ancient Abenaki spirit Oodzee-hozo emerging from the lake waters. According to Abenaki legend, Oodzee-hozo turned himself into stone after seeing the beauty of the place he had sculpted with his hands so that he could be a part of this place forever.
Forever. This summer’s floods, the heat and smoke wafting down from fires in Canada, and our overwatered muted fall colors can serve to remind us that today, the very notion of forever is under threat. These weather extremes can remind us that development, jobs and human fun must be planned and scaled carefully while keeping the impact of development on the environment and community paramount.
Relying upon laws designed to protect individual interests instead of shared resources are inadequate.
It is easy to see that, though I would be within my legal rights to place a shed 10 feet from my property line but right in front of my neighbor’s living room window, doing so would be disrespectful, shortsighted, and bad for the community. By ignoring a neighboring natural resource, Burton is similarly myopic and self-focused.
Respect for the greater community — one that goes beyond individuals to include the trees, stones and all wildlife — along with a long view of time could lead Burton toward a plan to repurpose its empty warehouse space that will be generative and life-giving for all.
