By Joel Banner Baird

Source: Burlington Free Press, April 4, 2010

“SHELBURNE — Residents stopped the bulldozers. Three cheers for environmental action? Not this time.

Developers, exasperated by what they saw as Shelburne’s ambivalent review process during the past two years and already having invested considerable time and more than $1 million, abandoned plans in late March for a 250-unit residential community in Shelburne Village.

The town might have lost a groundbreaking opportunity to better manage its natural resources.

Even as plans for Shelburnewood evaporated, experts described the proposed 20-acre expansion of downtown as a model of village reinvigoration; one that would reduce vehicle use, promote pedestrian and bike traffic and attract better bus service — and more.

“Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in Vermont, and climate change is our largest environmental challenge,” said Sandra Levine, a senior attorney at the Montpelier office of the Conservation Law Foundation. “Giving people the option of living in a village center would get us a long way toward meeting that goal.”

As that goal recedes in Shelburne, Levine and other Vermonters familiar with the closely watched project suggest there might be lessons to be learned. They offer theories (albeit through 20-20 hindsight) and advice.

They remind us: It ain’t easy. Personalities enter the equation, too. And what must, for now, qualify as out-and-out absurdity — Shelburne’s missed chance sputtered out riding this irony: Anticipated changes in village traffic patterns garnered the “green” endorsements — and also enabled opponents to stall and kill Shelburnewood.

You heard it right: good traffic, bad traffic.

But let’s step back on the sidewalk for a moment.

Out of time

Many Vermont towns, including Shelburne, have adopted town plans and zoning bylaws that foster centripetal (as opposed to centrifugal) development.

Levine, who wrote the foundation’s endorsement of Shelburnewood, worked with the town 10 years ago to help craft some of those guidelines.

How were they sidelined? Through a wavering political will, compounded with misconceptions about housing density, Levine said…”

Full story:  Anatomy of a development in Shelburne

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