This is the LCATV recording of the Selectboard Meeting of January 13, 2020, where a motion to place the updated Development Regulations on the upcoming Town Meeting ballot is approved with a 3 to 2 vote:
Anne Zolotas (moves), Sharon Roy (seconds) and Jonathan Shaw vote for the motion and David Carter and Skip Brown vote against it. [at 1:25:16 on the timeline].
Once the video has loaded and is playing, you can click on the timeline to move around. Go to the one hour mark to begin the transcript of the relevant agenda item “Discuss result of zoning public hearing and plan for next steps“. This takes about 30 minutes
Meanwhile, here are some of the highlights to explain each Selectboard member’s vote on making the development regulation approval an article:
Sharon Roy: I know a lot of people that they elected us to represent them. I don’t know whom I’m representing when I vote my opinion. I would like to see the town vote on this. I don’t feel that I am knowledgeable enough to know what the people of the Town of South Hero want. And I think they should vote on it.
Sharon Roy: I would rather have 500 people vote on this than 5 people. That’s my biggest thing.
Anne Zolotas: Personally I feel that the 5% of the people who had input into this product and the product that came from that, is a limited vision that doesn’t reflect perhaps the on the ground reality of what South Hero is and will become. I don’t think that that’s fair.
Skip Brown: If somebody votes it down, how do you know what they’re voting against?
David Carter: So I applaud the planning commission and the folks that worked so hard the last four years on this project. And we the selectboard deserve to give them that credit. I’m in favor of us voting as a selectboard to approve them.
Jonathan Shaw: And there’s no way around it, they [the development regulation changes] are major. Making the village districts is a major change. So to minimize that could backfire as well. If people read it and they make sense to them, I think we have to hope for the best. You know we can vote as a board whether to make it a town vote or… What’s our decision by the board?
Concluding comments are at 1:32:48
Jonathan Shaw: I think we just do it. We make a presentation at the town meeting and put out information and see what happens.
David Carter: Well, that’s been decided, so…
Click here for a hand-crafted transcript of the zoning regulations. This is a good faith effort to commit the spoken word to text. It will not be perfect, especially when there are overlapping conversations.
