
Housing development near the village center helps make our community more walkable and bikeable.
Many exciting changes have been happening in the Town and Village of Woodstock, the most recent of which is the town’s vote to purchase the Woodstock Aqueduct Company and upgrade the aqueduct’s infrastructure. Anyone who has tried to build in town recently knows that there has been a moratorium on any new connections to the aqueduct. This will change once these capital projects are completed, increasing the water flow to allow for new connections. New connections could mean housing development in the Village–something our community is severely lacking.
All construction in Woodstock must follow our zoning regulations. It follows that, if we are going to encourage housing development, we should have clear and user-friendly zoning that sets out a future vision for Woodstock. Towards this end, Harry Falconer, our town’s Shared Energy Coordinator (SEC), has been working with the Planning Commission to update our zoning bylaws. Harry’s role is run through Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission (TRORC) and works closely with Sustainable Woodstock’s Executive Director to implement and manage energy efficiency and electrification projects in town.
Harry has been working with the Planning Commission on a comprehensive strategy to encourage Smart Growth in town. Smart Growth is a planning approach that aims to create dense, walkable, mixed-use communities by promoting infill development in areas that are already developed. The goal of these changes is to promote the creation of new housing stock, including workforce housing, that will also help to grow the town’s Grand List, making additional investments in public infrastructure more financially feasible.
The first step in updating our zoning will be applying for a Municipal Planning Grant to update Woodstock’s Town Plan. The Town and Village Plan currently has a Future Land Use (FLU) map that is a duplicate of the districts defined in the current zoning bylaws. The FLU map ideally should guide the growth and development of a community. As it stands, the FLU map of our town–meant to guide growth–depicts a future where zoning is the same as it is right now. The problem with this is that, by law, a town’s zoning maps are required to conform with the Future Land Use map. Because Woodstock’s FLU map and zoning map are identical, Woodstock cannot change the boundaries of its zoning districts or consolidate districts. Receiving a Municipal Planning Grant will allow us to rewrite our Town and Village Plan and create a new Future Land Use map. The Select Board and Village Trustees have indicated their support of this grant application, which Harry is working on now.
The Planning Commission is also considering pursuing a Neighborhood Development Area Designation Program (NDA). The NDA Program encourages municipalities and developers to plan for new and infill housing in an area within walking distance of village centers and incentivizes needed housing. If Woodstock pursues designating an area in the east end of the village, benefits will include tax and regulatory incentives, funding incentives, and priority points for state grants. You can view existing Neighborhood Development Areas in Vermont on the Vermont Planning Atlas (under “Designations, Town Plans, & Bylaws” select “Neighborhood Development Area”).
Our Shared Energy Coordinator will be working with Sustainable Woodstock, members of the Planning Commission, and Town and Village officials to make other short-term improvements our zoning this year. Goals include fixing inconsistent terminology and lack of clear standards in the current bylaws and creating clear, measurable standards. The more we can streamline the approval process, the better we’ll be able to plan for and achieve a future with more housing near our Village center.