Williston
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Pages 11-15
SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
Here’s to a walkable winter
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
WWW.WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
Town commits to full sidewalk plowing for first time BY JASON STARR Observer staff If you are looking for a tangible benefit from the inflow of federal funds granted to the Town of Williston under the auspices of pandemic recovery, this winter should provide it. A sidewalk plow purchased with American Rescue Plan Act funds will be put into service this winter, giving the Department of Public Works the capacity to clear all 62 miles of town-owned sidewalks during a winter storm. The department also budgeted a new position this fiscal year to ensure it has the staff to operate the plow. With just one plow in previous winter seasons, the town could only get to about one quarter of its total sidewalks during storms, according to Public Works Director Bruce Hoar. On Monday, the selectboard rescinded its policy that governed how the town prioritized requests from residents that their neighborhood’s sidewalks be plowed, and updated the Public Works Department’s winter operations plan to commit to plowing all sidewalks. “It will be easier in that I won’t have people calling and asking me to plow their sidewalk … We’ll get them all, it’s just a matter of how long that will take,” Hoar said. The updated winter operations plan says the town will initiate sidewalk plowing when snow accumulates at least 2 inches. Street clearing will take precedence, it says, but the department strives to complete sidewalk plowing within 24 hours of a storm. The department doesn’t commit to a “dry pavement standard” or de-icing, only offering what the machines can accomplish on irregular sidewalks. “Surface irregularities and slippery conditions may result,” the plan states. Residents are asked to keep sidewalks clear. Selectboard member Greta D’Agostino said winter sidewalk clearing will hold the town to its pedestrian-friendly goals. Hoar agrees: “If we want to be encouraging people to walk, how can we say to them ‘it’s winter, it’s not walkable?’” he said. The new plow and staff will allow the town to catch up with the existing sidewalk inventory, but a third machine and more staff will be needed if new neighborhoods are built as expected in the coming years, Hoar said.
Backyard chickens on small lots would be allowed without a permit under a zoning change proposed by the Williston Zoning Department. OBSERVER PHOTOS BY AL FREY
Chicken debate rears head Planners push to allow flocks of up to 12 in residential areas BY JASON STARR Observer staff Many Williston residents are ignoring a town ban on keeping chickens on small residential lots. Rather than enforce the ban, Williston planners believe it’s time to change the rules. Williston Zoning Administrator Matt Boulanger took the recent opportunity of crafting new affordable housing regulations to attempt to lift the ban on backyard chickens, which are listed as “livestock” in Williston’s zoning bylaw and prohibited on lots of less than 1 acre. It was the “first hard look at our zoning bylaws in a post-Covid world,” he wrote in a Sept. 1 memo to the selectboard, and allowing chickens is an attempt to “improve food resilience.” But selectboard members who recalled the contentious debate on the subject five years ago — both Ted Kenney and Terry Macaig remain on the board from that time and both opposed lifting the ban — advised the board to slow the process. “There are a fair number of folks in Williston on lots that
are smaller than an acre, often in a suburban setting, who, despite the zoning prohibition, have backyard chickens,” Boulanger said, adding that his office hasn’t received any complaints about it. “This is not the first time our bylaws are somewhat behind what’s happening out in the world. Sometimes zoning disallows something … and we start to wonder if that still makes sense. “At a relatively small scale,” he added, “it’s something that can be done without creating a nuisance for your neighbors.” The noise of a rooster crow, the containment of feces, the wafting of odors and the potential for disease spread were all things that weighed on the 2018 board’s 3-2 decision to continue the backyard chicken ban. The planners’ current proposal would create an allowance for up to 12 chickens per household with a buffer from property lines of 15 feet for chicken coops and 20 feet for bedding and feed, and it would require regular removal of manure. It’s more permissive than the 2018 proposal, which would have allowed up to six chickens per flock and disallowed the male of the species — the notoriously loud rooster. In proposing to allow roosters, Boulanger said noise comsee CHICKENS page 24