This story by Liberty Darr was first published in the Shelburne News on August 1.
SHELBURNE — Developers have scaled back a controversial development after reaching a settlement with the neighbors who opposed the project.
According to town manager Matt Lawless, the selectboard approved the agreement that allows for a total of 63 units — a maximum of 48 units in multifamily buildings, plus seven single family homes, eight for sale or rental in the mixed-use commercial building that fronts Route 7.
The original 115-unit development proposal by Shelburne chiropractors Stephen Brandon and Shelley Crombach first came before the town’s development review board in 2021, and quickly generated controversy among residents who argued that the development, and ultimately the zoning regulations in place, allowed too much density in the area and was not consistent with the character of surrounding neighborhoods.
The development was proposed in a zoning district surrounding the land on the western side of the bustling Route 7 corridor just north of Bay Road known as the mixed residential character district — one of seven districts in the town’s form-based overlay district. Only a short 10-minute drive from Burlington, this district was first put in place in 2016 to enliven the Route 7 corridor, wrote Kate Lalley, chair of the planning commission at the time, in the Shelburne News in 2015.
“Form-based regulations emphasize aesthetics over use,” she wrote. “We believe this type of zoning is the best way to breathe new life into Route 7’s vacant buildings and sites, creating walkable nodes of development in the otherwise auto-oriented corridor in the process.”
Current planning commission chair Stephen Kendall told Shelburne News seven years later during the heat of the controversy that, other than a six-unit development on Bay Road, no projects had been proposed in the mixed residential character district aside from the development proposed by Crombach and Brandon.
The months that followed the initial proposal resulted in multiple public hearings, vehement resident backlash and ultimately led to the town spending just under $30,000 to hire a consultant to study the regulations.
Due to the backlash, Brandon and Crombach scaled back their development to 78 units and designated a portion for elderly housing. Although they ultimately gained approval from the review board in 2022, a resident group, Shelburne Neighbors United for Responsible Growth, quickly filed an appeal.
After the consultant confirmed that the zoning regulations were “overly complex,” selectboard members in 2022 unanimously moved to nix the mixed residential character district in its entirety from the town’s form-based overlay district.
Lawless explained that although the town remained an interested party throughout the mediation process, the town’s attorneys and he were not present at any of the negotiations and didn’t incur any significant legal costs.
“They worked it out on their own and then brought their resolution to us,” he said.
The project will not have to return to the Shelburne Development Review Board since the selectboard gets the last word on substantive approval of the agreement.
“Then it’s just the staff level administrative check on the construction plans to make sure that things like the stormwater pond is the right size and the water main is in the right place, and that the parking spaces are the right size, kind of blueprint technicalities,” he said. “But there’s no other public process.”
Members of the resident group and neighbors to the project, along with Brandon and Crombach, declined to comment regarding the process.
