Case Title: In re MBL Associates

Citation: 166 Vt. 606, 693 A.2d 698

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1997-03-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
In re MBL Associates  (96-110); 166 Vt. 606; 693 A.2d 698

[Filed 6-Mar-1997]

                               ENTRY ORDER

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 96-110

                            NOVEMBER TERM, 1996

In re MBL Associates                 }     APPEALED FROM:
                                     }
                                     }
                                     }     Environmental Board
                                     }
                                     }
                                     }     DOCKET NO. 4C0948-EB

       In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       The Town of Shelburne Selectboard and the Shelburne Planning
  Commission (Town) appeal the order of the Environmental Board granting
  developer MBL Associates (MBL) an Act 250 permit to construct a 221-unit
  housing project in South Burlington.  The Town argues the Board erred in
  concluding that the project conforms with the Chittenden County Regional
  Plan, as required under Act 250.  We affirm.

       In January 1994, MBL filed an application for an Act 250 permit with
  the District Environmental Commission to build a housing development in
  South Burlington near the Shelburne town line.  The development would be
  located on a 202-acre tract of land -- 154 acres on the west side of Dorset
  Street and 48 acres on the east side of Dorset Street.  All of the
  development, 161 single-family homes and 60 multifamily homes, would be
  built on 75 acres of the 154-acre tract, leaving the remaining 79 acres of
  the western tract and the entire 48-acre eastern tract undeveloped. 
  Municipal water and sewer lines for the project would be substantially
  extended south along Dorset Street to serve the project.  The Commission
  denied MBL a permit in April 1994.  MBL appealed to the Environmental
  Board, which, following motions to alter an initial permit, granted the
  developer an Act 250 permit in January 1996. This appeal followed.

       Before a land-use permit may be issued under Act 250, the Board or
  district commission must find that the project conforms with ten statutory
  criteria.  10 V.S.A. § 6086(a).  The tenth criterion requires a project to
  be "in conformance with any duly adopted local or regional plan." Id. §
  6086(a)(10).  The Town does not contest the Board's findings relative to
  criterion 10. Rather, the Town contends solely that the Board erred in
  concluding that the project conforms with the Chittenden County Regional
  Plan.  We will affirm the Board's conclusions if they are rationally
  derived from the findings and based on a correct interpretation of the law. 
  In re Killington, Ltd., 159 Vt. 206, 210, 616 A.2d 241, 244 (1992).

       The Board supported its conclusion on three grounds:  (1) that the
  project is an allowed use under the regional plan, (2) that none of the
  provisions in the regional plan calling for development in "growth
  centers," which encourage traditional village-town-country settlement
  patterns, are specific enough to deny MBL's permit, and (3) that the
  project complies with the plan under its "greater public good" exception. 
  The Town does not contest the Board's first determination that the project
  is an allowed use under the regional plan.  Although the area where the
  project would be located is designated as an agricultural area, the plan
  specifically includes "residential" as an allowed use in agricultural
  areas.

 

       The Town does contest the Board's second determination.  The Town
  argues that the Board should not have looked to the municipal zoning bylaws
  to determine whether the project satisfied the regional plan's density
  restrictions unless the Board found the regional plan's density
  requirements ambiguous.  We disagree.  The regional plan states that the
  intensity, type, and location of the region's future development are
  depicted on the Future Land Use Map and the Future Land Use Matrix, which
  take into consideration, among other factors, "the growth center concept." 
  Under "recommended residential density" for agricultural areas, the matrix
  indicates one unit per ten acres with clustering "or per local bylaws." 
  The Board therefore looked to South Burlington's zoning bylaws, which allow
  a maximum residential density of 1.1 units per acre.  As the project's
  overall density met this requirement, the Board concluded that the project
  was not prohibited under the plan.

       Provisions of a regional plan, like zoning ordinances, should be
  construed according to the ordinary rules of statutory construction.  See
  Houston v. Town of Waitsfield, 162 Vt. 476, 479,