Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Land Use Ordinance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Selectboard hearing on townwide land-use rewrite centers on quarry controls and setbacks
Summary
At a June 22 public hearing, planners and the Ordinance Committee outlined a comprehensive Land Use Ordinance rewrite proposing housing flexibility, dark-sky lighting standards and new quarry/extraction controls; multiple residents urged stronger setbacks or outright bans before the Selectboard’s July 20 deliberation.
Mike Martin, speaking for the Planning Commission, summarized a comprehensive rewrite of Springfield’s Land Use Ordinance at a public hearing on June 22, saying the draft aligns zoning with the 2024 Town Plan, the Selectboard Strategic Plan, and state laws including the 2023 HOME legislation and Act 181. The draft is presented as a complete replacement rather than a red-line edit of the existing ordinance.
The rewrite would enable greater housing and land-use flexibility — addressing short-term rentals, home occupations, accessory dwelling units and tiny-home/infill options — and change dimensional standards to reflect existing lot patterns (for example, downtown minimum frontage would drop from 75 feet to 25 feet). It also adds updated protections for priority forests, improved riparian buffers, and revised wetland, stormwater and surface drainage standards. Lighting regulation would shift away from the Stellafane Observatory overlay and toward townwide Dark Skies-aligned standards.
Article 9, addressing Earth Resource Extraction (quarries and gravel pits), drew the most sustained concern. The Ordinance Committee’s red-line adds detailed operational controls: a licensed independent blaster and blasting plan, real-time seismographic monitoring of blasts, pre-blast surveys of nearby properties, fly-rock controls and vibration limits, and a required groundwater monitoring plan and stormwater controls that meet state standards. The draft also clarifies how local conditional-use review would interface with Act 250 jurisdiction for larger parcels.
A large group of residents and commenters raised safety, nuisance and property-value concerns tied to extraction. Speakers including Dan Keebler, Heidi Trimbach and others said blasting, noise, dust and truck traffic would harm seniors, children, remote workers and medically vulnerable residents and risk well and foundation damage to older stone-foundation homes. Commenters also described enforcement gaps between town and state authorities and urged greater buffers; several asked for a 1,000-foot blasting setback, while the Ordinance Committee had adopted a 500-foot standard after finding a 1,000-foot rule could make commercial operations infeasible.
The Ordinance Committee described its role as aligning local rules with Act 250 practice and producing enforceable language rather than imposing outright bans; the committee’s red-lines therefore preserved conditional-use pathways for extraction in several districts while adding the operational safeguards described above.
Use tables in the draft currently list Earth Resource Extraction as a conditional use in multiple districts, including some 2- and 5-acre rural residential districts. Multiple commenters and participants urged removing extraction from those district use tables or prohibiting extraction where people live.
Procedureally, the Selectboard must decide whether to accept, reject or modify the Ordinance Committee red-lines. Any revised proposal must be filed with the Town Clerk, sent to the Planning Commission for a written report on the board’s changes, and returned to the Selectboard for a second public hearing; if adopted, an ordinance would take effect 21 days after adoption. The Selectboard scheduled deliberation of the ordinance changes for its July 20, 2026 meeting.
