Planning Commission

The Planning commission meets next on Tuesday February 19 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm in the Town Hall. They have a busy agenda. The full agenda may be viewed on the sidebar of this page.

• The PC members, as become a custom, will update each other on their interaction with other boards and committees. We call this "Liaison Updates."
• They will discuss where they are on developing an Official Map.
• The chair, Jason Cheney, will provide an update on the Ride Share project that he is working on with the Council of Rural Development.
• The majority of the evening will be spent in discussion with their consultant, Chris Sargent, reviewing the draft zoning language for the Commercial District. That draft language can be viewed on the Future of the Commercial District project page.
• They will also discuss their plans for their table at Town Meeting Day.

All are welcome to attend. If you cannot make it, the MMCTV video will be available for viewing later in the week following the meeting.

The Planning Commission met on Tuesday February 4.

They spend much of their meeting discussing their future projects and organizing their workload. They are currently working with their consultant on new zoning the the Commercial District. That will be wrapping up soon. The decided that they will focus on the following items next:

• An Official Map for the Commercial District and trails around Town;
• Edits to the Riverside Character Based Zoning District, they will be working with the DRB on this;
• Edits to the Zoning Planned Unit Developments;
• Edits to the Zoning to include energy efficiency; and
• Protecting agricultural land and encouraging agricultural businesses.

They looked at their survey on renaming the Commercial District and have a proposed new name - the Mansfield Neighborhood & Business District. AKA Mansfield or the MN&BD. What do you think? They'll be reaching out to folks about this name in the near future.

The PC will have a table at Town Meeting in March. This is a great time for anyone to stop by and chat about planning with the PC.

The minutes of the meeting will be availalbe on this page later this week and the meeting was recorded by MMCTV. That is available on this web page.

The Planning Commission meets next on Tuesday January 21 from 7:00 - 9:00 pm in the Town Hall.

The meeting will focus mostly on setting out a road map for short and long term planning projects. They will will be looking at their task list to help inform their next steps. You can view their Planning Task document here.

All are welcome to attend.

The Planning Commission would like to invite the public to their next meeting on January 7, 2020.

This meeting will be more informal than normal. The PC will be hosting a "cookie social" for all other Jericho Town Boards as well as the public. It is designed as a time for people to come and chat and share their thoughts with the PC and other board members. Please feel free to show up at Town Hall any time between 7 and 9 and be prepared to eat some cookies!

The Planning Commission met on Tuesday December 17th and they heard and discussed following items:

• A presentation from the Conservation Commission regarding a conservation fund that they are recommending to the Selectboard. More details on are posted on the Conservation Commission page.
• The Planning Commission and the Commercial District Advisory Committee discussed their comments on the Zoning Approach documents provided by their project consultant. You can view the documents provided by their consultant as well as a summary of both group's comments on the Commercial District project page.

This meeting was recorded by MMCTV and that video will be available for viewing soon after the meeting and the minutes will also be posted here once available.

The Planning Commission meets next on Tuesday December 3rd from 7:00 - 9:00 pm. The following items are on the agenda:

• The Planning Commission has been spending time over the last couple of years on a public process of better shaping the future of the Commercial District. One action item that surfaced is to change the name of the district. The district is not really just for commercial uses nor is that all that is there currently. In fact, it is just about evenly split between residential and commercial uses. What should the name be? They set up a poll on the PC page for folks to weigh in on. They will discuss the results so far. Participate in the Poll HERE
• They will continue their conversation on the next planning projects, based on this spreadsheet that includes Town Plan tasks as well as public comment.
• They also added an agenda item to discuss the potential zoning approach suggested by their consultant also with some supporting documents. See those below.

- Suggested Zoning Approach

The Planning Commission met on Tuesday November 19th.

The PC discussed what their focus should be (outside of the Commercial district project). They began their discussion with a quick presentation on Why Jericho should have a Town Plan.

• You can view that document here

Then, to move the discussion further on what to work on next, they looked at the implementation tasks from the Town Plan as well as on comments they have heard from community members over the last few years.

• You can view this document here.

They also discussed the process for renaming the Commercial district based on the new vision statement agreed upon in the Commercial District Master Plan, which was finalized in August of this year. This is the vision statement:

“A Commercial District that creates a valuable connection between Jericho Corners and Riverside Village; providing a location for mixed-use development and expanded commerce at an appropriate scale for the community which preserves rural character, the natural beauty of the landscape and distant views.”

Do you any ideas for a new name for the district? If so, come an suggest them or leave a comment here. Additionally, soon the PC will have a survey up on the Commercial district page where you can vote on which name you like best. Stay tuned!

If you were unable to attend, the minutes will be posted on this website following the meeting and the MMCTV video will also be linked on this page.

The Planning Commission met on Tuesday November 5.

Chris Sargent, the PC's consultant for the Commercial District project, led a discussion on future zoning changes for the CD. This is the last phase with Chris of the CD project. The development of zoning is in the early stages and the Chris presented what he had heard from the CD Advisory Committee when he met with them in October. He also summarized what was agreed upon through the Master Planning process related to zoning as well as discussed preferred zoning approaches, including a possible approach like Westford uses.

• View a summary of the Zoning Discussion Here

The Planning Commission also discussed the importance of implementing the other action steps from the Town Plan. There was further discussion related to the different parties responsible for moving forward with the next steps; an acknowledgement that the Selectboard and CD property owners are key players in those next steps. More discussion will need to follow soon.

On Tuesday October 15, the Planning Commission met at 7:00 pm in the Town Hall.

This meeting was the Public Hearing for a small round of Town Plan Amendments. They approved the amendments and sent them on to the Selectboard for their review and public hearings.

You can learn more about the Amendments by clicking the button below:

Join in Planning Commission for a movie. Well, actually a webinar, featuring form based code, but we'll have popcorn!

The meeting is on October 1, from 7:00-8:30 in the Town Hall.

The PC is going to be spending some time learning about varying planning related issues and tools. For this meeting they will learn more about "form based code". The webinar they will be watching is about form based code and small scale industrial/commercial development.

On the learning track, the PC will also take a time to learn about some other planning resources, particularly the State of Vermont planning manuals.