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Board presses regional planners on oversized culvert recommendations
Summary
Select Board members questioned regional planning guidance that recommends large culvert upsizing for small class 4 roads, saying such recommendations can trigger impractical downstream work and excessive costs; they urged the Rutland Regional Planning Commission to tailor guidance to small towns.
Board members used the meeting to press the Rutland Regional Planning Commission's staff about recent hydraulic guidance that, for some small class 4 roads, recommends much larger culvert sizes (one member contrasted a 12‑inch culvert with proposals to replace it with an up to 10‑foot opening). Members cautioned that large upsizing can create a "domino effect" requiring changes to driveways and downstream structures and may be neither feasible due to ledge nor fundable through FEMA, which may only pay to replace like‑for‑like.
Members described past experiences where FEMA would not fund upsizing and urged the regional commission to consider town‑scale, practical solutions rather than blanket large‑diameter recommendations. The board asked the regional commission representative to include guidance that helps towns say "no" when larger upsizing is impractical, and to consider the differing capacities of small towns during technical assistance.
