 |
Sabin's Pasture Area Working Group Introduction
Sabins Pasture Area Working Group Timeline & Schedule - (updated 3-13-08) 2 pages, 17 KB,Times Argus Article - October 26, 2007 Group seeks input on what to do at Sabin's Pasture By Steven Pappas Times Argus Staff MONTPELIER – Racing against the lead-up to Town Meeting, the Trust for Public Land is forming a group charged with collecting local input about the possible development and conservation of Sabin's Pasture. Rodger Krussman, the Trust's state director, said Thursday he hoped to have a "working group" of about a dozen participants in place prior to the group's first meeting in mid-November, and hoped to have some kind of public recommendation in place within three months. Krussman, who briefed the City Council on the Trust's work on the privately owned 90-plus-acre parcel off Barre Street, said the group would be representative of housing, conservation, Vermont College, City Hall and the neighborhoods affected by the proposal. As of Thursday afternoon, Krussman said he had nine slots on the committee filled and was aggressively working to fill the others. Once in place, Krussman said he's hoping the "working group" can be used to collect information from each of the interests its members represent and ultimately, lead to a firm recommendation for a plan for Sabin's Pasture at the next Town Meeting in March. Sabin's, one of the few remaining large undeveloped parcels in the city, is in a prominent location near downtown and has long been used by residents for recreation and walks. Its disposition has long been of intense interest to city officials and residents. The Trust, which is a national nonprofit land conservation organization that has been working on the Sabin's Pasture project for nearly six years, is hoping to pursue a ballot item for voters to decide whether the city should acquire a portion of the Sabin's Pasture property for conservation purposes. Krussman said all of the members of the group would be local, and depending on how many times the group could meet in the coming months, including the span of the busy holiday season, producing a recommendation was among his highest hopes. "I'd like to get something out there for people to look at (in March)," he said. "For now, I'd like to know what the city's thoughts are." In recent weeks, the Trust has been putting additional information out about plans for the property. On Sept. 12, Krussman and his staff made a presentation to the City Council that was followed by a lengthy discussion about the Sabin's Pasture project. At that time, councilors asked several questions of Krussman and his staff concerning potential stewardship, management and liability issues. Krussman has said the cost of the acquisition could top $3 million. The specifics of the deal between the Trust and the landowners, the Zorzi/Aja family, has not been disclosed because of a confidentiality clause in the agreement. Krussman told the councilors last month the clause was in place in large part to protect the landowners' interests so they don't put out a false value or expectation should the deal fall through and the family puts the property back on the market in the future. Krussman also told the councilors in September that, at this time, financing the project, regardless of who all of the interested parties happened to be, was not as important to the process as figuring out "what the benefit to the community is in terms of the … mix of development and conservation." At the close of the September meeting, Krussman agreed to return on a regular basis to update city officials on the project. At Wednesday night's meeting, Krussman reported that some progress had been made. City officials had been on a site visit to Sabin's Pasture. He said the Trust is continuing its efforts to "sift through information" collected about the parcel. Some councilors again tried on Wednesday to pin Krussman down about specifics of the project, but he indicated it was premature to discuss how much the city's part in the project would be – or any other investor at this point – until after the "working group" had met to hammer out issues, hear from the public and made a recommendation to the City Council. "That's why we need this group of people," he said. "This is where we collect that information." A firm date for the first meeting has not been set. [webmaster's note - two meetings have recently been held and more are scheduled - see PDF documents below] The interest in Sabin's Pasture spiked a few years ago when word spread that developer Stuart Chase was seeking to developing the pasture with an intensive housing complex. The Trust has been involved in land conservation in the capital before. In 1995, the Trust was able to negotiate and buy about 185 acres from the Latter Day Saints, now known as North Branch Park, located on Route 12. Also, in the Trust helped facilitate the transfer of a farmhouse that later became the North Branch Nature Center. Steven Pappas can be contacted at steven.pappas@timesargus.com. For More Information
Updated June 12, 2008 |
|||||
| Please send comments to: webmaster@montpelier-vt.org Copyright © 1998-2008 City of Montpelier, Vermont. Hosted by http://www.networksolutions.com |
