Tomorrow night’s P&Z Commission meeting (Thursday, January 4 at 7pm in Shepardson Auditorium Center) will be a long one. There are 4 public hearings, a possible decision on the Southford Park applications, 2 subdivision modification applications, two site plan applications, and an accessory apartment application. The meeting is available on Zoom, and the link will be posted in comments below.
January 5th is the one year anniversary of the P&Z public hearing for the original Timex application: three text amendments to raise the allowable roof height in the LI-200 zone, to add distribution facilities as a permitted use, and to define distribution facilities in the Definitions section of the Middlebury/s Zoning regulations. This application was withdrawn in February. The MSTA appealed the Conservation Commission’s May wetlands approval to Superior Court, and the first brief in that case is due this month. A new P&Z site plan application was filed in August for “industrial flex-space” along with a grading/excavation application and a text amendment to raise the allowable height in the LI-200 zone, and P&Z may render a decision for these three applications tomorrow night.The public hearings for the Metro Realty applications concerning the other Timex-owned property off Straits Turnpike will likely be the star attraction tomorrow night. Residents have concerns about population density, traffic, elimination of open space, potential impact to Middlebury's educational costs, precedent for future projects, and rapid, unchecked growth that might change the feel of a “semi-rural, small town.”
If the past year has revealed anything, it’s that Middlebury residents will go to great lengths to preserve that special something that makes Middlebury unique. You’ve attended meetings month after month for an entire year, given almost $100,000 of your own, hard-earned cash, turned out in record numbers during an otherwise unremarkable municipal election, and set a very clear expectation that the mandate expressed by the electorate is to be heeded. There is very little sympathy for the excuse that a developer might threaten legal action, and thus a commission “has” to approve an application: this is the opposite of holding an application to the standards required by our regulations. The burden is on an applicant to prove an application complies with our regulations, not on the town to flex our regulations so it doesn’t get sued.
So once again, we ask you to stand up for our town, attend another meeting, repeat yourself for more than the 12th time, and hold the line: Middlebury wants to stay a small, semi-rural town.
