Planning Commission

The Town hired consultants to help Jericho to update our Town Plan, which is required once every eight years. The entire project spans about 18 months. The Town applied for and received a grant which covered about half of the consultants' costs. In 2022, the Planning Commission scoped the project, applied for the grant, developed an RFP to solicit consultant bids, developed evaluation criteria, reviewed bids, and selected a consultant to help with the entire project. From the beginning, the Planning Commission emphasized public participation and chose consultants with strengths in public engagement as well as planning. The Community Forum is only one of many meetings, online surveys, and other tools jointly organized by the PC and the consultants. The total consultants' contract is about $45k, with half covered by the grant, and the Town's half share of expenses is spread across two fiscal years. The Selectboard approved the consultants' contract and funded the project as part of the overall Town budget process, which was approved at Town Meetings. The Selectboard, the PC and Town staff manage the grant and evaluate the consultants' performance of each deliverable stipulated in the contract. We look forward to a robust conversation about Jericho's future with as many residents as possible. As volunteers, the PC members appreciate the support and guidance from the consultants.

Thanks for submitting your idea. It will be shared with the engineers working on the scoping study. Potential wetland and utility impacts will be reviewed and considered as part of the study for each path option. 

Robert, thank you for reaching out with your question. Wastewater permits and concerns are issued/addressed by the state.  Here is the state wastewater division's contact info for Ernestine Chevrier: ernestine.chervrier@vermont.gov and phone 879-5661.

If you want to talk more with a local Jericho person on this, the Zoning Administrator, Chris Flinn is your best best.  He is in the office on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.  His email is: cflinn@jerichovt.gov and phone number is 899-2287 (ext 103).

thanks again and Happy New  Year! 

Thank you for you question on the sign for Kate's Food Truck. The Zoning Administrator issued a notice of violation for the sign as the sign area doesn't comply with Zoning requirements - yes, it it too big. The property owner is currently fighting the violation notice. The Zoning Administrator is continuing to pursue this issue. Stay tuned.

Thanks for the question, Vicki.  You clearly care about the Underhill Fats/Riverside village and its future development.  As you noted, some exciting things have been happening there over the last few years and we believe there is more to come! 

As you may recall, the community has invested a significant amount of effort in planning for the smart future growth of the village over a number of years.  You can see more about that on the "Riverside, What is New" Page of this website.  A good part of the planning has focused around the sawmill site, with the hope that any of the new development would be in character with the existing village that surrounds this site. 

The largest planning effort involved the creation of zoning called "character based zoning," which is a way to regulate development that controls building form and location first and building use second.  In Jericho's case, the building form and location requirements are developed to conform with the existing local neighborhood character, which includes historical building placement in relation to roads. You can see that along RT 15 and Park Street, where most of the existing buildings are set back around 25 feet from the roads and the bank is set back just about the same distance, around 30 feet.  Also, the size of the bank building is just over 2,000 square feet, which also is the size of many of the surrounding buildings, including the neighboring church.  The architectural standards required for the bank were also developed to match the existing village building styles.

Another one of the goals of the character based zoning is to provide for a safe and enjoyable pedestrian experience.  With that in mind, just as with the current historic village, any future development of the sawmill site will be required to provide sidewalks and pedestrian scale development.

That's a great question and part of what this site is about!  We need to get people HERE to see what's going on! Tell your friends, let me know your thoughts and ideas.  A newsletter is coming out to envite people to engage. Also a post on FPF get people here.  Also.... we need more interactive creativity.  Any ideas on that front would be well received.