Duxbury, Vermont, is a tiny little town without a proper town center, without a business district, but certainly not without a sense of community.
Duxbury (population 1,346 in 2005) is a town, like many other Vermont towns, blessed with planners, community members and elected officials who had the sense to stand up to state officials and planners when town and state visions for the future of a critical piece of land did not match up.
The 200-plus-acre former dairy farm sits at the edge of Duxbury and Moretown along Route 100. Owned by the state, the farm burned in 1994, two years after the town began planning for how that land might be best re-developed when it passed out of farming.
Town residents expressed a strong desire to see some of the land remain in agriculture and wanted to see limited economic development on the site. Town residents did not want to see the land become housing or condominiums. The town went to the expense of paying for a full scale assessment of the land's natural resources and outbuildings, hired a planning firm to guide a newly formed state farm steering committee and created a plan that reflected the concerns, contributions and participation of the townspeople.
When the state disagreed with the town's plan, suggesting that more development would be more appropriate as it would yield a higher price, Duxbury did not back down.
Not only did Duxbury not back down, the town used perhaps the best and one of the few tools at its disposal - zoning. It drew up meticulously crafted zoning that allowed limited housing in the 'state farm district' and mirrored the community's vision for the future of that critical piece of the town.
The zoning passed, the land has been sold and a significant portion will stay in agriculture, over 100 acres will be conserved, including an important wetland. A 154-acre piece of the property is being purchased by a town resident who will create a limited business incubator space for agricultural food enterprises. That venture may yield a restaurant and market that showcases locally grown products.
This outcome dovetails perfectly with what the future town residents envisioned for their town when they began planning for the future of this parcel in 1992 and it illustrates the power of good planning and zoning in protecting a town's ability to prepare for its own future.
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