Montpelier planning commission accepts required report and warns city plan public hearing for March 24, 2025

The Montpelier Planning Commission voted to accept the required report associated with the city plan readoption and set a Planning Commission public hearing for March 24, 2025.

Mike, planning staff, said the only change since the last draft was the date on the required report and described the report as a demonstration that the city is meeting statutory requirements for a municipal plan. “The required report is sent when we warn for a planning commission public hearing on the adoption of a plan,” he said, and explained the report accompanies the 30‑day notice sent to abutting communities, the regional planning commission and the Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

During discussion, Steve raised concerns about whether the plan’s utilities and facilities element adequately documents required infrastructure for the Country Club Road area and said public participation and the web format leave some residents unable to access the plan. Steve said, “public participation is too deficient to call this a plan” and urged more complete documentation of road, sidewalk, water and sewer needs tied to the growth‑center discussion.

Mike responded with background on earlier municipal actions, describing a prior confirmed planning process and a successful past TIF district for downtown: “So in 2018... we had a TIF district for our downtown that extended most of the downtown and all the way out through to Sabin's Pasture. So it was a very large TIF district... the TIF District was primarily being used at the start to fund the construction of the parking garage.” He said the hotel project tied to that TIF later withdrew its application after COVID and the city withdrew the TIF approval at that time.

Commissioners agreed staff could make two technical changes before the required notice is sent: reduce the implementation plan PDFs to lower file size and populate a final storyboard PDF for the land‑use chapter so the required attachments are included. Staff said those text changes will not alter policy language; they are conversions to smaller web‑ready PDFs and insertion of missing story map PDFs.

Aaron moved to accept the required report as presented (with a typo fix noted by Sean); Bill seconded. The motion carried on recorded ayes. Later Aaron moved to warn the Planning Commission public hearing for March 24, 2025; Tim seconded, and the motion carried with ayes recorded. The transcript shows no recorded votes in opposition.

Staff reiterated that warning the hearing on that date triggers a 30‑day public notice period, and that the plan will remain a draft for roughly five weeks while public comment is collected; substantial policy changes would require returning to the Planning Commission and potentially the public hearing process. Several commissioners and members of the public asked that the website display that the plan and its PDFs are draft materials and make the public hearing date prominent so residents know how to comment.