A decision on amending the Riders Outpost master plan to include 18 rooms plus a flex apartment and bunk room along with six cabins and six tent platforms to host up to 10 tents is expected this week. Additionally, he is proposing a 770-square foot bathhouse to serve the cabins and tents.
Project developer Jonny Adler formally presented the proposed changes to the Waitsfield Development Review Board on May 9, 2023. He is redeveloping the former Mad Bush property at 7575 Main Street in Waitsfield. The project is located in Waitsfield’s ag/res district and its adaptive redevelopment overlay district.
His original master plan, from June 2022, included 16 rooms plus the flex apartment. The project also includes a 54-seat restaurant and a retail space 1500-square foot retail space.
At this week’s hearing, the board worked through a punch list of details still needed after an April 20 site visit. Waitsfield Development Review Board chair John Donaldson said the board was convinced by Adler’s description of work that was done on the site that any additional square footage resulting from that work was de minimis.
Donaldson explained that the DRB’s calculation of required parking spaces is 67 between all of the uses and Adler said he has that as well as overflow.
After the April site visit, the board asked for a traffic study to determine the impact of the added rooms and cabins. A traffic impact study by Trudell Consulting Engineers showed that the additional cabins and tents and added hotel rooms would change the number of peak hour trips from 22.3 to 25.9.
Adler told the board that that increase was insignificant and noted that he also paid for and provided a traffic analysis including Riverview Condominiums and the eight-lot Rood subdivision which share a driveway and are located just south of Riders Outpost on Main Street/Route 100.
The DRB punch list sought clarification about the number of occupants at full capacity. In his response, Adler clarified that there will be 24 sleeping spaces in the cabins and tents and 45 sleeping spaces in the hotel rooms as well as 54 seats in the restaurant or 123 total.
The DRB confirmed feedback from state officials that placement of the tent platforms at the edge of the Folsom Brook river corridor was allowed and that the platforms would be removable in the event of a flood or other adverse weather conditions.
Adler told the board that the platforms would be light-duty wooden platforms that a couple of people could pick up and move. He said that the state was agnostic about “when, if and how they are used and moved as long as there’s no permanent infrastructure.”
