Addison County economic report

Vermont Business Magazine, Sep 01, 1998

The most recent permit revision from the state has given the system 20,000 gallons of capacity per day, and the meters on the various businesses and residences show only about 8,000 are in use, Hall said. So if someone wants to expand or add on an apartment, there is room for that to be done.

Bristol would like to have a similar common septic system for industrial users, but their plans have hit an obstacle based once again on geology. Hall said several towns have in the past bought tracts of land in Bristol so as to have adequate sand and gravel for municipal use, including New Haven -- and now it's the New Haven-owned land in Bristol that is needed to add to 30 acres of state land (for which there is a purchase and sales agreement for Bristol to buy for $1) to create the industrial area.

Town meeting voters in new Haven rejected the idea of selling the land, but negotiations continue, Hall said. One possibility: a joint Bristol-New Haven industrial park.

The town in the toughest position may be Shoreham, where extensive illegal sewer discharges discovered last year have yet to be resolved. A town committee has been working with engineers to come up with some kind of solution, which would also involve the Shoreham Apple Co-op warehouse, but so far the right combination of effectiveness and affordability has yet to be found.

Addison County as a whole got a scare this year when the Vermont House of Representatives passed a measure to close off the so-called 10-acre loophole in Act 250, which allows houses to be built on 10 or more acres without the need for septic system percolation tests. Next the bill went to the Senate Natural Resources Committee, where its chair-person, Senator Elizabeth Ready of Lincoln, as instrumental in averting its passage by the Senate.

Ready said that until alternative types of septic treatment are worked out and approved and made affordable for homeowners, Addison County will be in a unique position to suffer from any such closing of the loophole. "I'm against sprawl," she said, but Chittenden County's problems with acreage being chopped into 10-acre lots shouldn't be the reason for passing legislation that as it stands would have "a really devastating impact."

KEEPING IT TOGETHER

By and large, Addison County has naturally fallen into a pattern that advocates of preservation-minded zoning consider an ideal: clustered housing and open space. But to make that pattern functional, the three main village areas -- Middlebury, Vergennes and Bristol -- have realized they need to work to make sure they are centers in reality rather than by default.

Chittenden County, with its Church Street Marketplace, University Mall, and superstore zone in Williston, is only one of the forces tending to weaken Addison County's downtowns. It is now widely recognized that catalog sales, reinforced now by Internet connections, have been eroding customer loyalty as well.

Vergennes, the closest to the county line, has been hardest hit. But after a decade that saw Fishman's department store go out of business and a number of properties deteriorate into eyesores, the business district is on an upswing.